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A Latin American Adventure
  • Robert Allan
  • Robert Allan

A Latin American Adventure

A couple of Scotland friendlies, some exploring, new cultures and relaxation in Panama, Peru, Mexico and Cuba. En savoir plus
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  • Robert AllanA Latin American AdventureVoyageur

    Vinales Valley hike coffee making

    11 juin 2018, Cuba ⋅ 🌧 27 °C

    This morning three of the group, Hazel & Gino, and myself, join our guide Guarandi to go on a four hour hike to a cave. The hike eventually takes ten minutes short of six hours.

    Early on it's hard going as it is very warm and humid, even the guide thought so. We pass many small farms and holdings, spotting many animals, but no cars or machinery. Brilliant and peaceful. The small fields are ploughed by horse-drawn plough, stuff is moved by horse and cart, and farmers move about on horseback.

    After about two hours we stop at a few huts, where we are shown how they produce coffee, and also to have a coffee.... with rum in it 😋    En savoir plus

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  • Robert AllanA Latin American AdventureVoyageur

    Mural de la Prehistoria

    12 juin 2018, Cuba ⋅ ⛅ 25 °C

    As we head south west this morning, 4 kilometers west of Viñales village on the side of Mogote Pita is a 120m-long painting. Leovigildo González Morillo, a follower of Mexican artist Diego Rivera, designed it in 1961. On a cliff at the foot of the 617m-high Sierra de Viñales, the highest portion of the Sierra de los Órganos, this massive mural took 18 people four years to complete.

    After which we drove up to another panoramic view of the Vinales valley, next to the Horizontes Los Jazmines Hotel.    En savoir plus

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  • Robert AllanA Latin American AdventureVoyageur

    Parque Nacional de Guanahacabibes

    13 juin 2018, Cuba ⋅ ⛅ 26 °C

    This morning we're on a day trip to the furthest west point of Cuba. Before we leave the hotel, we celebrate Rebecca's birthday, with rum of course 😋

    We check-in to the national park centre, a little way from the hotel, and pick up a guide. Almost immediately we stop to check out a small Cenote, teeming with fish, on the shore. The underfoot rocks are dogtooth limestone, very sharp and pointed.En savoir plus

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  • Robert AllanA Latin American AdventureVoyageur
    GPX

    Las Terrazas

    14 juin 2018, Cuba ⋅ ⛅ 31 °C

    We leave Maria la Gorda and head back in the direction of Havana, where we have a long drive to Las Terrazas. This is a community that was established in the 1960's on barren land. At the time 6 million tree's were planted, along with a few lakes and of course houses and a hotel. And all of this on terraces. This is where we will be staying overnight.

    There we go zip lining through the tree's and over the lake on six zip wires.    En savoir plus

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  • Robert AllanA Latin American AdventureVoyageur

    Fuster house

    15 juin 2018, Cuba ⋅ ☀️ 29 °C

    As we enter the outskirts of Havana, we visit the studio, residence and wild kingdom of José Rodriguez Fuster, a Cuban artist. His house is decorated with tiled murals, and now the whole neighbourhood has a similar style as more than 80 neighbours have allowed Fuster to use their homes as his canvas. It's very like Guadi and Picasso.En savoir plus

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  • Robert AllanA Latin American AdventureVoyageur

    Cienfuegos

    16 juin 2018, Cuba ⋅ ⛅ 29 °C

    Eight of us from the previous tour are also on the Cuba Sailing tour, so we get transfer taxi's from our Casa to the meeting hotel in new Havana. There we meet our transfer guide and the three new members of our tour. They are Warren and Sue from Sydney, Australia, and Ben, originally from Fife, now living in Brisbane, Australia.

    We travel for four hours from Havana, to reach Cienfuegos, on the middle south of the island. Here we meet the Neptune, a big catamaran and it's crew, which is our home for the next week. The crew is Pedro the captain, Eduardo the chef and first mate, and Cat the G Adventures CEO, from Toronto, Canada.

    Now normally this is all the crew we would have, but there are also two trainee's, Leardo and Angel. There is also a trainee CEO, Allan from Costa Rica. Further to that we also have Vince, from Cork, Ireland who we originally thought was another tour member, and turns out to be the guy in charge of all sailing tours for G Adventures.

    We board, put our bags in our cabins, and sit down for our evening meal. Halfway through, the crew literally have to batten down the hatches, as we are hit by a rain storm. Thankfully it doesn't last long, as straight after the meal we cast off.    En savoir plus

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  • Robert AllanA Latin American AdventureVoyageur

    Cayó Guano lighthouse

    17 juin 2018, Cuba ⋅ ⛅ 25 °C

    We travel overnight from Cienfuegos to the island of Cayó Guano, arriving at about 3am. We wake up anchored next to a lighthouse that looks a bit like Thunderbird three.

    The lighthouse is manned by two guy's, there for a month at a time. One has swam out to the boat for a chat with the crew. This light is rotated by a clockwork mechanism that is powered by weights. These have to be wound up every eight hours.

    We have breakfast here before sailing on.    En savoir plus

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  • Robert AllanA Latin American AdventureVoyageur

    Punta del Este

    17 juin 2018, Caribbean Sea ⋅ ☀️ 30 °C

    We sail south west towards Cayó Largó, stopping along the way at Punta del Este to do some snorkeling for the first time. On the way the crew catch a Barracuda with the fishing rod.

    Whilst snorkeling the crew are busy catching some fresh lobsters. This is the first time we see how prolific they are, grabbing into the coral making sure to leave females and youngsters, and despatching the lobsters quickly to make them more manageable.

    Afterwards we continue on to Cayó Largó.    En savoir plus

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  • Robert AllanA Latin American AdventureVoyageur

    Sirena Beach

    17 juin 2018, Cuba ⋅ ☀️ 30 °C

    We go for a walk along the northern beach spotting sea stars, conch shell's, upside down mangrove jellyfish, crabs, and plenty of fish. We walk in the crystal clear shallows all the way to the small jetty, where we cross the narrow peninsula to the wonderful southern beach. The temptation is too much and we go swimming.

    Walking back to the boat, we find the crew have decided we are having a snack on the beach of lobster legs, with a cooler box of drinks.

    Later on we reverse off the beach into open water, and anchor for supper and our overnight stay.    En savoir plus

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  • Robert AllanA Latin American AdventureVoyageur

    Cayó Largo marina

    18 juin 2018, Cuba ⋅ ⛅ 28 °C

    We motor a short distance to Cayó Largó marina for breakfast. After which we visit the small Turtle sanctuary. We get a hell of a lot of information from a very knowledgeable and passionate Leonardo, who runs the centre.

    We learn about the different species of marine turtle's that nest along Cayo Largo's 25km of beaches, 7km of which are on tourist beaches. These eggs are transferred to the research centre for incubation in a controlled environment. He also shows us several tanks of nine month olds, a small amount kept back from the hatched eggs, which they will eventually tag and use for research purposes.

    He then says the first batch of eggs they lifted from the beach are overdue, they don't check on them until after 70 days, and he invites us to watch him dig them out. Unfortunately of the 99 egg's, 7 never had embryos, 3 died in the embryonic stage, only two were formed and moving, but never separated from the umbilical cord, and would eventually die. The rest, because of the extremely heavy rains when they were laid, never formed. Very sad, but Leonardo always seems to have hope.

    We did get to tag and name an eighteen month old, which we'll release to the sea in a few days when we return. We unanimously named him Leonardo.    En savoir plus

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  • Robert AllanA Latin American AdventureVoyageur

    Cayó del Rosario

    18 juin 2018, Caribbean Sea ⋅ ☀️ 31 °C

    We sail a fair bit west to Rosario Island, an uninhabited island. Rebecca decides to swim to shore, others take the inflatable boat, and a few of us including myself take kayaks.

    Due to the currents this island attracts a lot of flotsum and jetsum, unfortunately in this day and age a lot of it is plastic. So we decide to collect two big black bags of it, which the crew will dispose of properly at a refuse depot at Cayó Largó marina.

    Afterwards we have a picnic of lobster legs, accompanied with drink, then it's into the water for a mega game of volleyball.

    We kayak back to the boat, awaiting the zodiac with all the cameras. Just as it arrives near the boat, Clodagh falls into the water, accidently dragging the bag with her. We pull the bag out of the water quickly, getting it onto the boat, and emptying the cameras to flush them with fresh water, and put them in bags of rice to absorb the water.

    It's only then that I realise my camera is not amongst them, after a quick check we decide it must have fallen out, and is at the bottom of the Caribbean. The crew spring into action and all dive off the back of the boat. I wasn't expecting to see my camera again, but despite the water being about 30 feet deep, in only a short time the captain emerges from the water with it. Despite all efforts to save the cameras, they all die. Thankfully we manage to save the images on the memory cards.

    My camera had a fruitful, long seven years of use, taking ten's of thousands of photos, visited many countries, travelled about twice around the earth, and it was a fitting place for it to finish, on an amazing adventure.    En savoir plus

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