Havana

With a quick bus across Costa Rica to the capital San Jose, I hopped on a flight and was off to Cuba! I had been looking forward to finally meeting up with one of my besties Mel! We got this beautiful apartment in Old Havana where a lady came every morning and made us an amazing breakfast. Eager to explore we headed out into the city. Havana was founded in 1519 by the Spanish so has a lot of really beautiful architecture. However the sanctions of the last half century means that many of them have fallen into disrepair. It's both beautiful and sad to see these buildings, a lot of them with only the facade remaining or totally missing a roof. Yet often people will still be living there and by night you'll see lights inside.

One of the other side effects of these sanctions is the number of vintage cars in Cuba. A must do activity for us was to take a tour of Havana in one of these cars. We found a guy (or he found us more like) with a bright pink 1950's Buick. We toured the city for a couple of hours like ladies of leisure, taking on some of the famous sights and historic buildings, and driving through some of the more affluent suburbs. Driving through Havana's streets feels timeless the roads don't have modern infrastructure and there are no billboards or advertisements. There are vehicles on the road from every decade since the 50's in various states of repair. Nothing is thrown away in Cuba, everything is repaired or recycled into a different use.

We spent the rest of our time wandering the streets, admiring the street art, being serenaded by buskers, and trying multiple mojitos. As Havana is supposedly the home of the mojito it would be rude not to!Les mer