After the freezing weather and the snow that we experienced in Peru, when I first arrived in Havana, Cuba, the heat seemed to be a very welcome relief! That said it was the middle of the night and it was still about 30 degrees, so I should have been a little wary!

I was a little nervous arriving in Cuba, being a communist country and all, and quite strict with who can enter and leave the country, but I went through the airport pretty quickly, and it was great to see Luke waiting at Arrivals for me.

It didn’t take long to realise that this was a poor country, as the taxi driver had to stop to fill up with petrol on the way into town, and did so using a coke bottle of fuel that he pulled out of the boot! This was further reiterated by breakfast the next morning, ‘toast’ which was really just bread warmed by being left out in the heat for too long. But that said, our room was air conditioned and that would really make up for anything!

We soon realised that the heat and humidity would prove to be somewhat of an obstacle to our touristy adventures (38-40 degrees and very humid), but essentially that just meant that a long afternoon siesta was justified, as it was far too hot to be walking around outside between lunc htime and about 5 o’clock. We also learned that things are done a little bit differently in Cuba. There are two currencies used in Cuba, the local peso and the CUC (for tourists), and that means that tourists can only used some ATMs and not enter all shops (some are for locals only). We also learned that the locals are not supposed to have too much interaction with the tourists, unless it is specifically part of their job. On the first day, we were trying to find an ATM, and the guy who was the doorman at our hotel, happened to bump into us on his day off and offered to help us out. Partway towards the bank, he was stopped by two policeman and a military officer and questioned for about 15 minutes, whilst Luke and I waited. In the end he said to go on and he’d see us the next night at work. We never saw him again... who knows?

As a general rule, the food was also pretty terrible, and the service even worse. But when you are working in one of the state run restaurants and earning $8-13 a month, I’d be a little grumpy too! That said, we did find a great little parador in Havana, a little restaurant run out of someone’s private house (there is supposed to be a maximum of only 12 seats, but often then sneak some more in), and a brilliant Italian restaurant on our last night in Cuba. With these few exceptions, the food was pretty bland. Everything came with rice and a few slices of tomato and raw cabbage, and often the meat was of cuts that you wouldn’t even feed your pets – pieces of gristle and bone throughout.

Despite any of this, Cuba was absolutely unreal. To appreciated Havana, I think that you have to be a little nostalgic and take yourself back to the 1940s and 50s when the casinos were booming, the US mafia was running the place, and there was money to be had by all. In its day, I daresay Havana would have been the most beautiful city in the world - the architecture is unbelievable. Now, most of the buildings have fallen into an absolute state of disrepair and are crumbling and missing doors and windows and in desperate need of a fresh coat of paint.  But come night time, and the buildings were lit up with flood lights, hiding all of the flaws, they still look pretty spectacular.

We had two days in Havana at the beginning of our holiday where we checked out the old town, some of Ernest Hemmingways’ old haunts, the malecon, sampled quite a few ice creams, and naturally, we also drank a fair bit of Cuban rum - enjoying mojitos, daiquiris, ron Collins and whatever else may have been on the menus.

We had then decided to book five nights staying in an all inclusive resort on Cayo Guillermo at the top (?) of Cuba. This place was pretty much paradise. Bright blue, tropical water, white sand, millions of palm trees, sun lounges all along the beach, a massage therapist set up under a hut on the jetty and blue skies. The package was also all-inclusive, and so that meant cocktails under a palm tree on the beach at any time of day! We stayed in a bungalow and it was only a short walk to the restaurant, to the bar, to reception and to the beach. The resort had a pool, but we never actually used it – when you have a beach as beautiful as the one that we had on our doorstep, why would you go anywhere else?

There were lots of activities on offer, so we pretty much tried everything. We each had massages on the first day, Luke went for a ride in this boat/plane contraption, we went scuba diving (inquired at 9.30am in the morning, pool lesson at 10.00, on the reef at midday – who needs certifications! And we went down to 16m), and chartered a boat and went deep sea fishing. Turns out that I am the undisputed champion of Cuban fishing, there was only one fish caught all morning, and guess who caught it! Among our days on Cayo Guillermo, there were also two ‘nothing’ days, as there was a tropical storm passing over Cuba and that meant that the weather was pretty miserable and all water activities were cancelled. Fortunately, the Olympics were on, so we could watch them. This did mean, however, an awful lot of Greco roman wrestling, weight lifting and indoor volleyball (the sports that Cuba featured in).

I also like to think that we did our bit for the Cuban revolution one night. We went out to dinner to one of the fancy restaurants in the resort and found that there were a few sacrifices that we had to make. A slight modification needed to be made to our pizzas as they were out of nearly every topping (though there did seem to be plenty of carrot), there was not cabernet sauvignon despite there being 3 or 4 on the menu, and there was no choice to be made regarding dessert! This follows four or five days of there being no internet access at the resort, b/c they were out of access cards and new ones hadn’t arrived yet. And they never did either!

With some sadness, we moved on to Trinidad after six days on Cayo Guillermo, and since transportation is pretty limited if you are not coming or going from Havana, this meant that we caught a taxi for 3 ½ hours! Not the cheapest way, but there was no other option. For the first time this trip we got ‘done’ by a jinintero, as the taxi driver pretended that the casa that we wanted to stay in would be full and so took us to his ‘friends’ casa instead, where we got charged a terrible rate and the lady tried to screw us for every dollar. But, again, it was too hot to be bothered to do anything about moving, so we put up with it for four nights!

Trinidad was pretty nice, much smaller than Havana, and a little quieter than I might have imagined. We had lobster for dinner the first night (a $10 a serve, how can you go past it!) and found a cool outdoor bar in the ruins of an old theatre to have a drink in. The following day, we made one of our silliest decisions. We decided that it would be a good idea to hire bikes and ride the 16kms to the nearest beach, Playa Ancon. In any month, other than the summer, this is probably a good idea and a pleasant experience, but it was a terrible one on this particular day. It was unbelievably hot, the road seemed never ending, and unfortunately when we got there, it didn’t even compare to the beaches of Cayo Guillermo. That said, the tropical storm had ripped through the area only three days earlier, so it wasn’t entirely surprising that the water was a bit murky and there was sea weed all over the beach. So after a quick dip, we started making our way back to Trinidad, but only got so far as a lunch stop (where absolutely nothing listed on t menu was available!) when we decided that enough was enough and hailed a cab to take us that 13kms back home! The saving grace was a delicious ice cream parlour that we found in Trinidad – I think we had three ice creams each that day!

The following day we made another not to fantastic decision (b/c essentially deciding to do anything slightly vigorous during the day was not so good). We went up to Topes Collantes  to do a walk down to a waterfall. According to the guide books, it was supposed to be cooler up there and more like cloud forest. Turned out that it was almost as hot up here, but we made the walk down to the waterfall and had a swim, and then made the return journey back up. It only took about 45 minutes to get back up, but I almost fainted a couple of times and there were quite a few stops along the way. Fortunately there was a bar at the top of the trail which sold plenty of water served the best lunch we had the entire time in Cuba! Toasted sandwiches with cheese, ham, mustard and chutney. Actually, they would have been good in any country!

We made it back to Trinidad, and that night contributed to the cause of the revolution once again. The entire town  experienced a black out that night whilst we were out for dinner. This meant dinner by candlelight, and since there were absolutely no lights on in the town, it would have been impossible to find our way back to the casa, so we did the only sensible thing of staying there and testing the restaurants cocktail list! We had actually chosen this place to eat because it overlooked a plaza area where live music was usually played. We’d been sampling cocktails long enough for the lights to come back on, so made our way to the plaza, along with what seemed  every other tourist in Trinidad (the stairs were packed!) for some live Cuban salsa music. People (mainly locals) were up and dancing at the front of the stage – it was good fun.

We went snorkelling the next day, travelling out by catamaran to one of the nearby cayos, however, as the tropical storm has passed through only a few days earlier, the water was still pretty murky, so there wasn’t too much to see.  It made for a nice day in the sun and in the water, however, there was still more fun to be had. Luke gets one thousand bonus points because he agreed to come and have a salsa lesson with me that night. But it wasn’t any salsa lesson, it was conducted in the cool bar that we’d gone to a few nights earlier (in the ruins), on the stage, with the spotlight on us, and we were the only two taking a lesson at that time – slightly nerve wrecking!  But we had a lovely teacher who kept promising ‘only one more’ (step to learn), but bombarding us with at least six or seven! In the end we had the basic steps down and one tricky spin move!

The following day it was back to Havana by bus. It was about 5-ish hours, stopping for a break just near a town called Australia, and stopping for the bus driver to pull over on the side of the highway, dash across to a friend’s (?) house, chat through the window for about 10 minutes, finally come back with a bag of lemons and then we continued on our way! I don’t think I mentioned what the roads in Cuba were actually like. As a general rule, the bitumen was okay – few major pot holes here and there – but there was ever form of transport moving along these roads – massive, old 1950s cars, trucks, buses (the snazzy tourist ones and the run down local ones), army trucks, new cars, bicycles, horse and carts, donkeys. You name it, if it had wheels or hooves,  we would have seen it on the roads at some point in time.

So we had one final afternoon in Havana where we brought lots rum and cigars to take home/London, ate yet more ice cream, and then for dinner we went to the amazing Italian restaurant – by far a standout in Cuba. It was the most sensational meal, and we were only disappointed to find it on our last night. We also found (or had recommended by a Tasmanian couple who were staying in the same casa as us in Trinidad) a great casa in Havana, where the host was lovely, the air con was cool and breakfast the next morning was tasty! The only other thing that we were slightly disappointed about was that we forgot to take photos of Havana city. It is unlike any other city and it’s just a pity we didn’t capture it.

On the way to London we had a one day stop-over in Mexico City, so we briefly visited the Zocolo (to do something touristy) and then shopped to our hearts content, buying one million DVDs, sunnies, t-shirts and all sorts of things at ridiculously cheap prices. We arrived in London after a cramped, but uneventful flight, and for me, I found it strange that after four months in Spanish speaking countries, suddenly everyone was speaking English. I had forgotten how easy it was to talk to attendant selling the tube tickets, or to the checkout lady in the supermarket and not have to bumble my way through! Ah... the simple things!

So we are now living in Battersea with Robbo and Chris, two of Luke’s friends from Brisbane, and everything is great. But now the sad part – time to step back into the real world, the holiday is over and I need to get a job...

Well Anna and I set off to conquer the Inca Trail at 4.30 in the morning, on Thursday 31st July (the best part of the day), and we survived to tell the tale! It was bitterly cold in Cusco and we were wondering what we were getting ourselves into as we jumped into the van with 8 others (all from the US – what we´d manager to avoid thus far!)! After meeting up with our chef in Ollantaytambo, who apparently went AWOL,  and driving a further 40mins to Km82, we began our trek with what was supposed to be the easiest part – the ´Ínca Flat´ - nothing overly flat about it.

Having heard from various sources, how tough the second day apparently is, Anna and I approached the trek with some trepidation, especially when we discovered that that ´flat´ was not really all that flan – what would Day 2 really be like??  But my fears were soon put to rest, and I knew that I would survive when we arrived at our lunch spot to find that the porters (and there were 14 porters for the 10 of us) had set up an eating tent, we were given a glass of Chica Morana (a cordially type drink made from purple corn – incredibly good) and there were little basins with soap and a hand towel laid out for each of us! I certainly wasn´t expecting this type of luxury, but I knew that somehow I would be able to cope!!

The porters were absolutely unbelievable – there were fourteen of them carrying absolutely everything – from the food to the tents, to the chairs and tables, to the cooker and even the gas bottle to run the cooker! Those guys were amazing. Even more amazing was watching óur´ porters compared with those from other companies (NB, I cannot recommend Llama Path highly enough to anyone considering doing the Inca Trail). Everyone had a job and something in particular that they carried.

After lunch we hiked some more, before stopping for day, which meant ´happy hour´ - popcorn, biscuits and MILO! And this was all before dinner, which was always a three course meal (as was lunch). Needless to say, it was early to bed that night, in our tents, wrapped in just about everything that we owned – I was finally pleased to be carrying all my thermals, sleeping bag and liner!

The next morning wasn´t quite so early, and just to add to the luxury of the trip, we were woken by the porters, bearing both cocoa tea (thought to help with altitude sickness) and basins with warm water to wash! The second day was the hard day – we basically did an M shape – up to 4200m (Dead Woman’s Pass), down 1 ½ hours for lunch (Pacajunga), and back up to 4000m, before traversing down through cloud forest to stop for the night. We passed a couple of spectacular Inca sites along the way, so fortunately that gave us all time to catch our breaths and have a break. I didn´t actually mind the hike this day, as it was not nearly as bad as what I had been imagining, and once I got into a rhythm, it wasn´t too bad. That said, I´d not be in a hurry to do it again, and I felt especially sorry for one of the girls in our group who was suffering from altitude sickness.

It was during this day, that I came to the realisation that two of the americans doing the trek with us – two guys from New York, were absolute morons. From their need to be the centre of attention, to their need to reach all the key checkpoints first, they drove me mad.  But this wasn’t enough to detract from the experience, especially as the others in the group were great (four friends from Colorado and two girls from New Jersey) and our fantastic leader, Casiado, who called us all ‘super-hikers’ started every morning with a cheer, called all of the other groups ‘losers’ (tongue in cheek) and was constantly playing ‘total eclipse of the heart’ on his wooden flute-thingy.

We had a little bit of a sleep in on the third day, and after a massive breakfast of toast, pancakes, porridge and more  cocoa tea, we set off for a ½ day hike to our final campsite.  The path was almost all downhill and there were lots of switchbacks, so it was actually quite hard work. Arriving at the campsite, it was very different to the others – every group would be staying there that night, so we  were all crowded in.  However, there were showers there (and hot ones at that!), and that turned out to be the best 5 soles I spent in quite some time – came out like a new person after the first shower in three days! Late in the afternoon, we went for a short walk to an Inca Site, Winay Huayna, and managed to catch the sunset from there.

In contrast to the sleep in that morning, we were up at 3.30 on the final morning, to make the journey to the sun gate (overlooking Macchu Piccu) by sunrise.  This was an out of this world experience. We were at the checkpoint at 4am, hoping to be first in line to then start the hike, had to wait there until the checkpoint opened at 5.00am. As soon as the checkpoint opened and our documents had been checked, it was virtually ‘every man for himself’. The pace was pretty quick, as each group tried to maintain their spot on the path, and within each group, people rushing to be at the front, and therefore get to the sun gate first. It was pretty spectacular to get that first glimpse of Macchu Piccu and know that you had made the four day trek, though you were quickly pulled back into reality as we jostled with one hundred other people to take a good photo. It was packed!

We spent a couple of hours walking around Macchu Piccu (being guided by Casiado), but if the truth be told, I think that it was more about the challenge of completing trek than Macchu Piccu itself, and by the time we got down to start our tour of the city, I was totally and utterly exhausted. That said it was still quite spectacular, and amazing to see how such an advanced city was built such a long time ago. Especially without all of the technology that we have today.

After lunch, we then caught a train back to Ollayantaytambo and a bus to Cusco. We got back, and much to our dismay, not only was there no hot wáter at the hotel, but there was no wáter full stop! The owners assured us that it would be back on in 10 minutes, so we waited ten minutes, then 30, the 1 ½ hours, but still no luck, so we had no other option but to go out to dinner without showering – gross! However, this was son to become the least of our worries as Anna discovered that her credit card details had been stolen and $6000 had been run up on her credit card. Given that money was spent in places such as ‘Hot Wheels Quito’, it was pretty unlikely that it had been her! So there were a few frantic phone calls to Australia that night.

Needless to say, we changed hotels the following day. We found a lovely hotel with big rooms, (very) hot showers (we checked before booking the room!), and an open fireplace in the bar. We spent the day recovering by shopping, emailing home and Anna even had a massage. The next two days were our ‘sheep’ days as we joined tour groups, 1 – to visit the sacred valley, and 2 – to travel to Puno on the shores of Lake Titicaca. For two days we were herded around with 50 000 other tourists from market, to inca site to all you can eat buffet, where it was impossible to really appreciate anything as the archealogical sites were swarmed with tourists and rude americians pushed in front of you at every turn (not to generalise, but..).

On the way to Lake Titicaca we stopped at the highest pass along the way, and it actually started snowing! It was ridiculously cold, and fortunately there were ladies there selling scarves for about $10, so I brought one of those! Anna and I thought that it was only snowing here b/c it was so high, but no, turned out it would snow a couple of times in Puno also! We arrived in Puno and couldn’t get away from our hideous tour group quickly enough, but fortunately had booked ourselves into a great little hotel, and then found the most brilliant restaurant to eat in. It was an Italian restaurant (at this stage we are getting a little over rice and beans), which was run by a family where all the kids worked, and the wood oven pizza chef was the thirteen year old cousin who quite enjoyed practicing his English with us (and vice versa). The food was delicious, and in fact so good that we went back another two times! The best meal that I had there was an alpaca steak with a red wine and pear sauce – actually, it was one of the best meals I’ve had ever!

So we had a day to explore Puno, booking a tour out to the islands, climbing to one of the look outs – a little silly given Puno’s altitude and then our decision to climb even higher! and visited the Yavari navy ship.  The Yavari is a boat that was commissioned by the Peruvian navy back in the 1860s, that was designed and the pieces constructed in England, and were then shipped to the Peruvian coast and carried up to Lake Titicaca (at 3800m) by man and mule to be put together there!

We woke up the following morning to snow falling and Anna seriously questioning whether we actually wanted to go out and visit the islands, given that it’s apparently even colder on the islands! We did go, and purely by default we ended up on a nicer boat that what we paid for (reclining chairs and only 14 other people), which was a major plus, given that the first boat we’d been put on had about 30 people and they were all squished onto bench seats. It was a very slow journey out to the Uros Islands – the famous floating reed islands. There are more than 40 man made islands in the group, and our first stop was Isla Manco Capac where one of the local men explained how the islands are made and demonstrated how they built their houses and their ovens.  The islands really are terribly commercialised, so the island also had stalls set up, and each family trying to sell us handicrafts. We then caught a reed boat, powered by local men paddling, across to another island, and then we jumped back onto our actual boat for the journey to Isla Amantari. We arrived at the dock to see a group of locals all lined up, hoping to take in a group of tourists (and therefore receive a payment). Anna and I stayed with an older lady and her family, but in all honesty, we were a little disappointed with the experience. We thought (or at least hoped) that we would be living like the locals for the night, but we had our own room with beds and a table and chairs, which meant that we ate by ourselves in our room (so never really met the family), had comfortable beds and even electricity (even though it is particularly expensive on the islands).

Although it was freezing cold, we did walk up to Templo de Papatata (a temple up on one of the highest points of the island) for sunset, and then came back down to the village’s plaza for a celebration of the local artisans – good timing to catch this! Lots of dancing and bonfires being lit. We were also supposed to go to a fiesta that night, but it was absolutely freezing, so Anna and I decided not to go, and in the end, this wasn’t such a bad idea. From all reports, it was a very staged affair – and not surprising, given that the locals have to put on this show every night and most others only stayed about 30mins. The following morning, we had a whirlwind trip to Isla Taquile – not much to see there, and we never actually did anything. So it was more or less a waste of time, and then it was time to make the three hour journey back to Puno.

So one more night in Puno, and of course the obligatory visit to our favourite restaurant, and then we were off to the airport and for one last day together in Lima. Stayed at a nice hostel in the San Miguel district, and spent the day in and around Miraflores – walking along the clifftop above the ocean and trying to avoid waiters doing the hard sell for their restaurants. We did find a shopping centre built into the side of the cliffs (sounds a lot cooler than it actually is) but did find a bar that did good cocktails and calamari. After a bit of trouble trying to find a restaurant for our ‘last supper’ (Anna would be leaving at the crack of dawn the next morning), and discovering the most disgusting sangrias that I’ve ever tasted (and subsequently left almost untouched), we found a really nice seafood restaurant and a nice bottle of wine!

So we toasted our six week holiday, lamented the fact that Anna would be back at work in only a few days, and promised that we wouldn’t have to be cold or climb any more steps for a very long time!