Jamaica

Still not sure what to make of Jamaica. I think I expected it to be quite different, more developed than it is. It reminds me of Kenya in many ways, although it is more developed than that.

We've received a lovely warm welcome from Marva and Larry, who have gone out of their way to make sure we're comfortable. It's made a huge difference to our experience of Jamaica, to actually have Jamaicans to stay with, and to be in the heart of the country.

The seaside resorts are very different, as you can imagine, and it was fascinating for us to be in Ocho Rios. The hotel we stayed in seems to be used mostly by black tourists - Jamaican, Jamaican diaspora, and African Americans - and so its a bit different than some others would be. Every weekday a huge, and I mean huge, cruise ship comes in. When we arrived at Ocho Rios and saw the ship my eyes nearly popped out of my head - I've never seen or even imagined such a big ship. I've never fancied going on a cruise, but after seeing this monstrous beauty I feel a real curiosity to go and look around one, and maybe even to try it.

Anyway, every day one of these ships pulls in and disgorges hundreds, maybe thousands of passengers (mostly white USers judging by the sound and look of them) who swarm on shore, look around the shops, swim in the sea and whatever else in time to be back on board by five. Ocho Rios seems to survive on these cruise ships, certainly at this time of the year, as there weren't many tourists around in the evening - although there must be some to have kept us awake with loud karaoke till 2am one night!

- Heather

Rosa's thoughts on Jamaica and Cuba

Jamaica

• It's hot, sticky and there are mosquitoes
• People are very friendly
• Juici Patties great
• Don't like jerk chicken

Cuba

• Liked Felipe's cooking
• Didn't like internet being so expensive and not having MSN

- Rosa

Kicking back in Clarendon

Just a short note to let you all know we're safe and sound in Denbigh, Clarendon, Jamaica, and being well looked after by Marva and Larry. Cuba reports and photos will come when we get a chance to get them up here - and our next flight will be the one to Gatwick! Meanwhile here's a short article on the Rowntree's thing (to make up for the missing Sunday Times article ... though maybe that'll be in this week?!).

If you're looking for the Cuba photos, they start just below this ...

Happy in Havana

After the last bus ride, we were more than happy to take a taxi back to Havana, so that's how we arrived, having sped up the main highway under a huge sky, sometimes full of lightning and rain, sometimes sunny and blue. We'd insisted on one with air-conditioning, so we didn't try opening the windows for the first half of the journey - what a relief to let our speed do some proper cooling on the second half! We passed rice paddies, sugar cane, big fodder grasses like ones we'd seen in Western Kenya, and a huge (guava?) orchard with enormous piles of stones every hundred metres, presumably dug out of the ground the trees stood in. The roads are not so busy in Cuba, and it was a shame we had too full a car to offer a lift to anyone at the well organised hitch-hiking stands outside each town and by each major junction.

On arrival in Cuba, we'd stayed in Vedado - this time we made sure we were right in the centre of Havana, again with friendly hosts, this time in a flat that reminded me a little of my gran's (now my aunt's) London flat, and which had belonged to the family since it was new, two years before the 1959 revolution. There were no powercuts, though the lifts were out of order much of the time ...

We were in a great location (we have the address and phone number if anyone wants it!) - our first night we walked past Central Park to the Capitolio (like the one in Washington DC, but with better detailing, apparently), and on to Chinatown for a reasonable chinese meal, before strolling up to the Malecon (seafront), and back home down the Prado.

Tuesday, we got filled in on Cuban history at the Museo de la Revolucion (in the old Presidential Palace), went back to the Capitolio to use the internet and eat tuna sandwiches, and hung out in the Cubans' shopping area of San Rafael before heading home for a siesta. In the evening, four cinema tickets (The Terminal), four street pizzas, and loads of ice-cream came to about 50p.

Wednesday, we did Havana Vieja (the old town) - after another brief internet stop off at the Capitolio. We walked up Calle Obispo to Plaza de la Catedral - and discovered a huge craft market right next door. While H and Mo checked that out, Rosa and I watched a man and his dogs, mascots of the Pilla chocolate company.

On a green just round the corner, we came across the Giganteria street-theatre troupe working on their circus skills - I managed to say hi and have a quick unicycle, and left disappointed that we were leaving the country before their show at the weekend. There were more stilt-walkers and musicians passing the book stalls in the Plaza de Armas - but the Plaza San Francisco was less interesting, and though the Plaza Vieja was pretty, the photography gallery we were looking for was shut for renovations, and the playing card museum was pretty small and uninteresting. The camera oscura was good though - the guide/operator even pointed out her ex-husband clearing tables in a cafe across the square!

After another siesta, we spent our final evening in Cuba on the malecon: eating at the Asturia Club, watching the sun go down, listening to a trovador singing to his friends, and enjoying the noisy, active, cooperatively-competitive spectacle of Cubans fishing off the harbour wall, rushing all together to a better spot whenever one spotted a shoal of fish in the fading light.

- Mark

Cienfuegos, and Trinidad

Cienfuegos

Our arrival in Havana had introduced us to one side of tourist life in Cuba - our friendly hosts tried to charge us in pesos convertibles rather than the US dollars we'd signed up to on the room booking web site (a 13 percent surcharge, which we avoided), and we paid our first money-changing taxes (an unavoidable ten percent of whichever hard currency you change from). But our hosts were also happy to organise a taxi to Cienfuegos, where we soon fled to escape the rain, at very little more than the bus fare for door-to-door service and a two hour shorter ride.

We stayed with a very warm and friendly old couple in Cienfuegos, with family in Austria and England (I'd thought Cubans had little freedom of travel, but this family were far from unique in maintaining international connections), a sweet sausage dog, and a cleaning woman with a voice like a lark. We found a good pizza restaurant, sat on the dock of the bay for a while, and changed some money out of the "tourist currency" into Cuban everyday money. But perhaps our best discovery was the pool at the Hotel Union, especially as we made friends with the Barber-Mitsushita family on our second visit there (see Heather's entry, below).

Trinidad

After our crappest "air-con luxury" bus ride yet (the wiggly road as much as the cramped bus - and we'd been spoiled by Mexican lujo and executivo class buses), the pretty town of Trinidad welcomed us well. Felipe, our host at our casa particulara had visited London and Essex more than once, spoke British English, and cooked a fine chicken curry. Our previous hosts had arranged the rooms for us - and we hadn't realized we were getting a whole upstairs apartment for our money, complete with fridge, sitting room/diner and patio.

Here we waited out the last couple of days of Cyclone Arlene, whose rain was welcomed by the thirsty Cuban countryside and its anxious farmers. We welcomed the cool, especially with frequent power-cuts leaving us with neither fan nor air-con. We read, played on the gameboy, and made small sallies out to a cafe here, to write postcards, or a biscuit and bottled water shop there. I regretted leaving the camera in the apartment one day when a huge downpour turned the cobbled street outside our cafe into a rushing torrent of brown water.

Trinidad, segun the guidebook, 'doesn't hold tourists well' - if so, then tourism must be slow just now, as we seemed to see more 'real' Cuban street life here than we had so far, and we liked the place. We began to make more use of the non-tourist Cuban currency ( pesos cubanos, or moneda nacional), which Tracie and Anna had encouraged us toward in Cienfuegos. Chocolate biscuits in a 'dollar store' - one convertible (about 25 cubanos). Little home-made guava-filled cake on the street - one cubano - so it's very well worth getting ten or twenty quid's worth if you come to Cuba while they still have two currencies. Transport, accommodation, tourist-aimed restaurants, internet access, tourist activities and 'attractions' all have to be paid for in convertibles, mind you, so no point changing too much into the cheaper currency.

Riding and swimming

At the weekend, we did proper tourist activities - horse-riding, and diving/snorkeling - each organised the night before by our host at a good price, and neither executivo class. On Saturday, we began with a 'five minute walk' (twenty minutes in the heat) to a hacienda at the edge of town.

Here we hopped on bony horses for a 90 minute ride to a national park with a waterfall. Cubans trot a lot (we noticed this around town also), and I got a sore bum.

At the national park, a 'twenty minute walk' (one hour) took us through admittedly lovely forest/jungle (it actually looked like Wales, but hotter), took us to a great swimming spot under a cascada. We weren't the only ones there!

I, for one, was dreading a couple of hours walking and riding back, but the time passed pleasantly enough (gorgeous countryside will do that), and we were soon back at the ranch.

Diving and Snorkeling

Sunday began with an exciting cross-country, back-tracking, police-avoiding drive in a classic American car with our less-than-completely-official diving and snorkeling instructors. The diving instructor had a proper id card - though I hadn't heard of the diving organisation it was from - and the equipment had seen better days. But the parts that are supposed to be air tight kept the water out and the air in, the buckles were tight, and the bits air should flow through did that job OK too, so Rosa and I descended, equipped with camera in the waterproof case we picked up second-hand in Thailand.

I loved it - Rosa got steered a lot by the instructor, which she didn't like (she uses her arms too much when she's nervous, instead of just your legs as is recommended, and he didn't like that), but she liked the coral, the fish, and the octopus whose arm we glimpsed in a little cave just before we surfaced.

The snorkeling was great too, with a reef heading straight out from the shore, but I foolishly took the camera out of its case after the dive, so we didn't get snorkeling photos.

- Mark