So, here’s a thing about me: I don’t like the taste of mint very much. I’ve tried mojitos a few times in Vancouver, with some trepidation, and without fail they were all terrible.
I went to Cuba. To an all-inclusive, no less. It seems weird to go to Cuba and not have a mojito, so I figured I’d try one.
It. Was. Amazing!
So it seems that I like mojitos after all, they just have to be made right. And I drank enough of them (and paid attention!) that I think I can do this. I need to go shopping… and I need to grow some mint.
I got home, walked into the kitchen, and ordered a mojito. Nothing happened. Damn.
Anyway, so Cuba! Right, Dan & I just spent a week in Cuba and it was simply wonderful. So as not to completely bore the fuck out of you, I’m going to write a bit about it, but in little bursts here and there. Come to think of it, this might actually be worse as I’ll keep jamming it in everyones faces until I’m tired of talking about it.
Which may NEVER HAPPEN, because CUBA.
So, I’ve actually been wanting to go to Cuba for years. To the point where my ex & I had a running joke about going. For Christmas one year, we even got each other (different) Cuban guidebooks. Obviously, that didn’t pan out (neither did the relationship) but I still wanted to go to Cuba.
So… Dan & I started talking about taking a vacation, other than little bits & pieces of “get out of town” things that we’ve done locally. My last “go far away from home” trip was to Zimbabwe in 2007. His last real vacation was to Israel in 2001. Well. This needs to be rectified, obviously. So when I got my part time status at work last November, and got to actually sign up for vacation time, we both thought Cuba sounded like a fantastic idea.
And we were right!
We started planning it for real a few months ago. As it turned out, Kimli & co went to Cuba last year, and so I asked her about the resort she stayed in. She recommended Breezes Jibacoa, and after googling the heck out of it, it sounded pretty good to us. 14+, all inclusive, and closer to Havana than most of the resorts in Varadero.
So my original intention was to do a lot of solo trips, but when we had our orientation… well, as much as I hate to be the “look at things from the bus” type of tourist, the three excursions we booked actually covered all the bases. Also used up our excursion budget, so that made it fairly easy. The trips we booked were:
Thursday: A day out on a catamaran, with a chance to swim with dolphins, do some open water snorkelling, and then finish off the day with a late lunch & swimming at Cayo Blanco before heading back to Varadero (and then bus back to our resort.)
Friday: Varadero tour. This was the only one I was a little disappointed with, as it was very much a “look out the window at things, then stop at a few places to wander around for ten minutes”. However, we had a few hours of free time in the afternoon to wander around downtown Varadero which was loads of fun, and we met a great couple from the UK who were in Cuba for their honeymoon, and we ended up hanging out with them for a good portion of the rest of the trip. (Yay, we made friends!)
Monday: Havana. After Friday, I was a little concerned this was going to be another “look out the window at things” tour. And it had a bit of that, but we had a lot more time out and about. We visited Old Havana, a rum museum, the Capitol building, lunch at a lovely restaurant in New Havana, and the highlight of the trip for me, a tour through a cigar factory.
I’ll go into more detail about those later. For now, here’s what I saw every time I opened the curtains in our room:
