Two Moto Kiwis Arctic To Antarctic May 2012...

Good afternoon ADVers.

Locals are NOT allowed internet in Cuba, foreigners can at selected place at around$10 / hour and is as slow as a week week.... half an hour for two short emails, no, pics nada.

Anyway, we are back, we are well (now) and we have some stuff to post, busy uploading all our pics now .... not too far away and you can grab a crate of beer, maybe some hankies and some toilet paper.

Ciao for now.

Team A & E

ok, I'm ready.

Am enjoying your trip report, and liking your pics, the beach ones especially!
look forward to the next up-date.

Nervously waiting.... doesn't sound altogether good.

In the morning Mike, we are shagged now so off to bed like a coupla oldies

... you are in luck there are one or two instances where girls just got in the way

No too bad Pedro but it does involve hospitals, deaths, accidents so just a normal trip for us

Did you go and die again?

Hi Kiwis,

Looking forward to your updates, keen to hear about Cuba. I landed back in Phoenix this morning all keen to be touring mode again.

Cheers,

Craig

Hurry up you two :ddog

There has been a marked productivity increase at work whilst you were in Cuba, perhaps warranting a pay rise, but now you are back that wish will probably drift away and my colleagues will stop wondering what the hell got into me..... :)

Yeah ... must stop doing that

Heya Craig welcome back mate.

We are back to the future now as well

No pressure

Yes firstly an apology to all those who had to go to work and work, we will make it up to you.

TwoUpTourer ... go for payrise now mate .. there is one or two pics and some words to follow.

Ok, as promised our report is on your desk this morning

Quick overview, we have broken the report down to each day so there will be 21 reports, a few pics each, in the Cuba sum up we will put the link up to the photo album so you can see the rest of them if you are at work

This is our route we took so for names and places look on here to make sense of it if you can ... if you can make sense of it let us know



Day 1, February 27th 2013, we left from Playa Del Carmen to Cancun on the aeropuerto bus.

Arriving at the aerupuerto to terminal two we established that was where we needed to get off.

Per our travel agent lady we arrived three hours early to find our man who was meant to meet us wasn’t there .... when he did get there he had changed genda to a she ... no worries same job done just on Mexico time.

At the Cancun airport you can buy anything Harley except a bike



Getting our tickets and VISAs etc all handed over was very easy done and painless so all we had to do is then wait for our call to board our plane at gate 6 ... which was then changed to gate 4 or we would have gone to Canada ...... not too bad option either.

Tickets ... WOH HOH we are off!!!



Leaving Cancun the views from the tin bird were pretty cool giving a great perspective of the layout of gringoland.





We left our pen in the cargo luggage, when we were given a customs form, we thought we could borrow a pen from the cabin crew. Ellen asked nicely to a male hostess t borrow a pen?, got a straight answer “NO!”, oh well, that’s the Cubana Air service for us. It turned out at the end we gave the blank forms to them, nobody really cares anyway so what is the point to hand them out at the first place???.

Crossing a few smaller islands we had only just been given a drink and snack then we were descending down into Havana so it is not far.

Arriving bang on 4.10 pm our bag took over an hour to get as did everybody else’s, they musta been having some sietas in between pushing each bag out as the machine almost seemed constipated.

Finally we cleared the sniffer dogs and customs to meet our preorganised ride to our preorganised hotel for the first and last nights.

The hotel was a 4 star.... yeah right - we think the location was but not the room and facility were 2 maybe 3 star at best. The air conditioning was a fan, the sliding door would not open without an epic arm wrestle, anyway, you get what you pay for... sort of.

Pic of the room on super vivid to make it look better, note we had the latest tube TV



The view was cool although the glamourous looking pool was freezing cold.



That evening we got out cash and had a small “feet on the ground” look around not venturing too far as the footpaths were not lit and it was very dark but to be honest it was as safe as.

In new territory with new currency and new prices and the unknown of where we will stay we both had that sinking feeling that we had when we entered Mexico of WTF have we done.

Won’t be long and and we will get into the rhythm.

We woke to a gray day then is started to rain then it start to blow then it started pissing down .... lucky we were inside having breakfast so it didn’t matter.

We were tossing up whether to move or stay put with the weather caving in, with only having three weeks to play with we decided to crack a pace and move, coupled with our hotel package the room was $30 CUC (same same US) but each night extra was going to be $53 CUC so we booted ourselves out and found a home stay which is very easy as they are everywhere and much cheaper and better than a hotel.

Taking the tourist bus into town we had a look around to get our feet on the ground.



We were the only ones on the top deck toughing it out so we had the place to ourselves



The funny thing is with Cuba is 99% of their cars are either American heavy metal or Ladas



Most American cars have Japanese diesels in them although I did spot a 4 cyl Lada diesel sitting in a 56 chevy ... the small engine looking extremely lonely in the huge engine bay!!!

We established that food was not too badly priced and we bought a bottle of Cuban wine for $2.50 which to be fair was actually quite nice, lunch was a plate of food for $2.00 each and filing.

Tomorrow we head to Tinidad where we will stay for three nights and use it as a base camp to look around.

Wifi is VERY hard to impossible to find and when you find it they are wanting $8 euro, about $10 US per hour and it is slower than a wet week, locals are NOT allowed internet, only tourists and at selected locations like 5 star hotels.

Because the internet was so scarce we couldn't even get a photo of it :huh

Although I am not an arty person I found this painting quite striking with want on my mind.



The old cars are pretty much all Taxis, we went camera mad then realized these old dolls are everywhere, none the less I was lovin it.



Local little taxi .... not as cool as the cars!!!



There is a train restoration yard right in old town centro, they go from this



To this, beautiful work



Some locals relaxing at the waterfront



Canons along the waterfront set up nicely



Russian tank on display, military stuff is everywhere and in your face, every corner, every street.



Stunning old car being used as a wedding vehicle this day

Leaving Habana from our Casa we travelled in a minibus with 4 Italian girls who were heading to Trinidad as well.

The minibus arrived to pick us up at 8.15am instead of 8.30am ... the biggest catch is we slept in till 8.10 am so it was a 2 minute shower, 30 second dunnie stop, 10 second pack up and the rest for a quick coffee that our host had made - very nice cuba coffee indeed, then we were on our way at 8.20am.

The rest of the 4 hour trip was uneventful other than our driver getting pulled up by the feds for not wearing his seatbelt and two goats crossing the road around a blind corner which saw our driver slam the brakes and the ABS doing its work very well indeed.

Arriving at our new Casa Particular we were welcomed in and shown to our room which was $20 US per night and very nice.

Taking a good look around town to suss things out we had a pizza for lunch and checked out scoota rentals etc.



Walking away from the gringo zone things change incredibly quickly, there is a real “them and the us’s” going on, we are not allowed to go to the locals bank to get CUP Cuban Peso which is 24/1 dollar, we were told no and where we were to go so would could exchange it.

They use the two currencies over here in Cuba, CUC which is parity with the US dollar and the CUP which is $24CUP/$1USD, everything in centro and cities/tourist zones is CUC until you get to the local scene where you can buy with CUP, a tourist trap is to buy in CUC and get given change in CUP so you have to look at what you are getting or you will pay through the roof.

Ural sidies are everywhere, they are all old dolls tho.



Also KHI from Russia, a watercooled stinky.



Our experience so far in Cuba has been great, people are very friendly, we have already walked through some very 3rd world areas and not once have we felt unsafe ... in fact the people smile and greet us at least in the smaller places... hola or buenos dias/tardes/noches depending on the time of day.

We did try to find the beach but too far to walk for the time we had, stopping at a small bar we had a chat with the bar manager and bought a cold coke, he was a neat guy and great to chat with despite our language barriers, all smiles and drawings on paper ... easy as.

A few sights to see like this garage door, if you car does not fit in just make a bigger bulge to take it



Heading back to our Casa we bought some fruit for breaky and nibbles, $20 CUP which is about 0.83 cents for four mangoes and four tomatoes

Back at our Casa for tea, Lobster .... what more could you want it was superb and cost $8 CUC.

That Ural is a Dnepr!

Waking up to a very wet day mum nature had decided Cuba needed a wash, we had planned to rent a scoota but nah tomorrow will do when/if it is fine.

Our neighbour from Bacelona had a breaky and it was huge, she couldn’t eat it all so we helped her with the coffee and fruit and juice .. a nice start.

Today now is Spanish learning day as this will help with the basic understanding when we get to Guatemala.

The rain continued off and on all day, more on than off however later in the afternoon we had a window to sneak out and have a look at another part of old town Trinidad, stopping along the way we bought a Pizza for $20 CUP which is $0.83 cents.

Continuing up the street to the old centre were small art shops, bars etc all for the tourist which is the biggest industry here.

Walking along a small side street a lady said welcome in to see her dolls for sale ... what caught my eye was the CBR1000RR Repsol sitting in there ... WTF????, very very unusual to see a big bike other than a Ural and even more surprising to see a big Japanese bike as 99% here is MZ or Ural and a massive array of small Japanese two strokes.



Town was very nice and the streets all cobbled from yesteryear.



We even managed to get a photo of the local hotrod before it blazed on past.



Pictures of Che feature everywhere, this was an opportune photo with a picture in the courtyard behind.



Mechanics working in the street on an old Chevrolet ..... still sporting drum brakes etc but most of these cars have engine conversions to Lada diesels, kinda funny with Russian engines in US cars.

That is ISH in Angleski.

Yeap and that one ... I thought it was a ruski but now we have the real oil!!

So cool that you went to Trinidad first. It was my favorite town. Early in the predawn there was a klop klop and a person calling out Pan..pan..pan..
It was the baker making his rounds with a cart and
pony. I loved that town. LOts of lobster too.
Iam so enjoying your experiences.
But Wanaka sucks because it has only one Mexican cafe. Haha.
But I saw Lord of the Rings at the Paradiso, a really cool theatre. Later. So Go on,tell us the rest.