Acueducto de Albear

Luci and Aleisha were up around dawn to see the valley, I woke a little later to the sound of the restaurant above getting ready for the day. The view certainly was pretty with an unbroken layer of soft white cloud stretching across to the mogotes on the other side.

Last night we had washed our shoes to remove the mud of the fango. Not a problem for the others, but I had no spares so I wrote them wet. Later on the way to Havana I took them off and they dried well in the breeze in the back of the taxi. On arrival to Havana we were early so we asked the driver to take us to the Plaza de la Revolucion which we had previously missed. It was very impressive with the huge monument to Jose Marti and huge images of Camile Cienfuegos and Che Guevara on nearby buildings.

Then to the airport where the driver had to pick up his next fare to go to Punta Maria la Gorda before returning home to Pina del RIo about 9pm. In the airport there was little to buy and less to eat. The only things for sale in abundance were bottles of rum. At the cafe downstairs I bought the last ham and cheese sandwich, and it was only 2pm. Upstairs at the other cafe Luci got another boring sandwich. Meanwhile Mira lay on the seats, feeling too sick to move.

The flight was called and we were on our way. I ended up swapping with Mira for the right window seat. Mira had found the passenger next door interesting; he had lived in over 20 countries and had worked in a circus amongst other things. I found him to be a rather pretentious Englishman with a Mexican lady friend, so we didn't talk a lot.

Over the Caribbean I saw a boat and a coral atoll but little more until we arrived to Mexico City. The air was clear, so good views of the mountains. After landing the immigration processing was overwhelmed. It took about 1 1/2 hours to get through, sped up when 2 of the 5 desks re-opened after staff came back from a break. One lady we queued with was interesting. She was Danish, but 40 years ago had married a Mexican and came to live in an eco-village at Tepoztlan, a very pretty area near Cuernavaca. Residents included an architect, ballerina, painters, etc who gained a living giving workshops and commuting to Mexico City. She had separated from the Mexican many years ago, but they had a som, now about 35 years old who had just started work as a tour guide in Cuba. A week ago she had received a mignight call saying her son was expected to survive but with no other details. 4 hours later snother call told her the son had had a heart attack and was in hospital in Pinar del Rio. She flew there next day. Apparently he had been staying at a casa outside Vinales when he had the heart attack, his pulse shot up to 250 and he was in a bad way. All the same they didn't get a car and he had to walk 500m to another house where they realised the danger and drove him to town.

We cleared immigration, Wawis and Riki were waiting for us. They took us to eat tacos then back home to bed..Read more