Vinales

Troi oi! Ve Vinh Ha Long... Vinales is one of those many places that can be dubbed a Ha Long Bay on land, in fact, it's almost bizarre how much the place resembles the interior of Cat Ba Island, just without any rice paddies and Vietnamese people. Found a small casa to stay at – Isabelle and Lusito, our home for the following four days. Took a day hike into the countryside and tobacco plantations which was stunning, passing the cheers of a cock-fight in the distance. Had a day on horseback, visiting tobacco plantations and some gorgeous scenery (though I couldn't sit down the following day), and just sat in our rocking chairs and enjoyed the world and slow pace of life!

Cuba is a country that begs to be explored by motorbike. It's warm and sunny, full of places difficult to reach by bus, and there's hardly any traffic. Renting a bike is of course hugely difficult, as only government businesses can rent bikes, and they seem to have acquired a load of tiny 50cc mini-scooters that are deemed suitable for tourists. So off we went on our voyage of discovery on our little bone shaker (it rattled and wobbled even on the smoothest of surfaces)... off to the small town of Puetro Esperanza, a very quiet fishing village. Perhaps the clouds at the start of the day weren't a good omen, but back to biking in the rain, not too bad, however, as the bike had an effective maximum cruising speed of 25kph. Alas, a small hill on the way back to town proved too much for the little contraption and the auto-clutch broke, meaning a long push to find a phone. Now this is Cuba. Apart from tourist rental cars, there really isn't any traffic other than the occasional truck or ox-cart...

anyhow, making use of gravity we jumped on the bike to roll

down a hill, just as Cuban's glorious all serving people's police force

traffic patrol drove past and promptly gave us a ticket for riding without a helmet... and that's where the sympathy ended – they wouldn't help us in our broken down state, and dove off quickly... In the end, we decided not to pay the ticket, perhaps they'll be waiting for us at the airport?!

And the pics are here!