Sarah and Ian's Move to Ottawa

The story so far...having planned and booked a three month trip to South America, we were given a difficult decision to make when Ian was offered a job in Canada. After much hard thinking, we took the job, but get the best of both worlds as we still have two weeks in Brazil and Chile before arriving in Ottawa. We are now living in Ottawa and enjoying the big adventure of living somewhere new. This is the story of our experience...

Saturday, July 08, 2006

Quiet Days

Back at the package hotel we had a couple more days to relax, watching films and playing cards (Sarah now has the lowest score for Gin Rummy of 26 points). Havana has definitely been the highlight of our week in Cuba but, even though we loathe package holidays, we enjoyed our lazy days in Varadero.

Wednesday, July 05, 2006

Hemingway’s Havana

We wanted to visit Hemingway’s house outside Havana so got up early. The main house is being renovated and was closed but we were able to see the guest bungalow, gardens, pool and tower. A curious feature of the estate was the cat cemetery near the pool and Pilar, Hemingway’s fishing boat.

Back in Havana we enjoyed a drink at the Saratoga Hotel and finally got to do a tour around the cigar factory. The process was quite specialised as there are thousands of cigars rolled, cut, labelled and graded according to type and colour. Although it was informative we wished we hadn’t done the tour as the factory was a sweat box. 750 workers were cramped inside this hot, stuffy factory and they had to make 80-120 cigars a day.

For lunch we sat outside the Hotel Inglaterra and had cheese and ham toasties. On our final walk back to our hotel we nipped into Hotel Ambos Mundos to see the room where Hemingway had stayed, on and off, for 7 years in Room 511. It was here that he wrote ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls’. After afternoon tea in Café Mercury around the corner of the hotel we picked up our bags and got a taxi to the Viazul Bus Station. There was a horrific thunderstorm on the way and we saw several old cars stranded in the rushing water.

Tuesday, July 04, 2006

Hotter Havana

We woke up fairly late and had slim pickings at breakfast. We hopped straight into a taxi for the newer part of Havana to visit Revolutionary Square. It is a large, empty area where they hold rallies and meetings. There is an outline of Che Guevara’s face on the side of the Ministry of the Interior, where he had worked. Across the road there is the Jose Marti Memorial. He seems to be revered throughout Cuba as there are pictures and posters of him everywhere. I guess he is fairly important as he was responsible for Cuban independence. There are excellent views of the city from the top of the tower.

We got an Egg-Taxi back to La Rampa and on the way we got to see the University and the famous mural on the Havana Libre Hotel. As a treat we had ice-cream at Coppelia. There was a huge queue for ice-cream, which confused us because there was a another café selling the same ice-cream round the corner and had no queue at all. Afterwards we walked down La Rampa, which had a market and we purchased some Cuban dominoes.

At the Malecon, the waterfront walkway we tried to get a taxi, eventually getting into a local’s car without realising it wasn’t a taxi. He gave us a lift to the Revolution Museum though. The museum was previously the Presidential Palace and you can see the bullet holes in the wall from 1957 when revolutionary students tried to kill President Batista. Batista escaped with a cache of gold through a side door. At the back of the museum there is an exhibit of planes, tanks and used cars from this period.

We went to a tobacco factory hoping to do a tour but there weren’t any available. Instead we bought one cigar and marvelled at the prices. Some boxes were $1000 or more! Opposite the tobacco factory is the Capitolio. The building is loosely modelled on the White House and was the home of government until 1959. It is extremely grand inside. We got an excellent aerial picture from the top of the Saratoga Hotel having talked one of the bellboys to show us around. If we visited Havana again we would stay here as it is a lovely hotel and the hotel staff are lovely.

Prior to dinner we popped into the Vintage Car Museum. We were ravenous as we hadn’t eaten since our spartan breakfast and headed for and Italian restaurant on Prado and Neptune. They were actually closed but let us in to sit in the blissful air-conditioning and have a couple of drinks at the bar. We watched the Germany v Italy game and enjoyed the Italians reaction to the win! After the match we walked around in the Fratenidad Park as the guide book had said there are lots of vintage cars parked there but there weren’t. Maybe they had driven off.
We went back to the Italian restaurant for dinner and had our best meal in Cuba. The pizzas were great. We were quite full and enjoyed a stroll up and down Paseo del Prado watching 8 kids playing a game like ‘It’. Obviously we had to end the evening with a daiquiri at la Floridita!

Monday, July 03, 2006

Hot Havana

Today we got the bus to Havana. We are staying at the Hotel Valencia which is lovely and in a nice part of town. After checking in we walked around San Cristobal Cathedral, which supposedly housed Colombus’ bones and then had Mojitos in Bodeguita del Medio, one of the bars that Hemingway frequented. We were disappointed not to see Neruda’s signature on the wall amongst all the others.

Lunch was in La Mina in Plaza de Armas. The food wasn’t that good but there was a very inquisitive peacock wandering around. We walked down Opispo Street and popped into an old pharmacy, Taquechel, which still used old jars to store ingredients in. We enjoyed an hour or so in the General’s Palace, where independence from Spain was confirmed then walked around the Fort and back to the hotel to cool down but our room was still baking hot, even though the aircon had been on for hours. In the evening we went to La Floridita, another bar Hemingway was a regular at and really enjoyed the daiquiris.

Sunday, July 02, 2006

Satisfactory Package

We woke up late and stayed in our room playing cards and reading up about Havana. We spent the afternoon by the pool again. After we walked into town and nosed around the markets and visited Josane Park. We spent the evening watching a film and Blue Planet in our room.

Saturday, July 01, 2006

Cuba Si

We are on a package tour! There was a long queue at immigration when we arrived in Cuba, which was ok as we were able to watch the first half of the England-Portugal World Cup match. The hotel itself needs a lick of paint but our room was ok. We had a walk on the beach and I swam in the sea. In the afternoon we had a swim in the pool and fell asleep on the pool loungers. At dinner we discovered that all inclusive food is not great.