November 22 Back to Maggie and Jamal’s
We awoke early to the sound of the squirrel monkeys arriving. They came as a large troop it was impossible to count them all at the same time as they were constantly moving and appearing from different places and then hiding in the large tree. There was over a dozen. We watched them for a […more]
November 21 Manuel Antonio National Park
Manuel Antonio park has a limit of 800 visitors at a time. So when the first 800 go in the next person has to wait until one of the people in the park leaves. Our guided tour lasted over an hour and after the guide left we did a couple of more hours at least. […more]
November 20 Off to Casa Buena Vista
The day started out well with Maggie's and Jamal's emailbox being very light. All of their work comes in via email so they were able to leave early (10ish). So we started up the GPS and it had two routes one was via the dirt road and one was via the paved road. So I […more]
November 19 2015 Off to Maggie’s
We were supposed to be picked up at the AirBnB place at 1pm so we had all morning to kill. We walked over to the Amon District looking for a Gallery and didn't find it. But we did find a lot of neat buildings, street art and nice places. From there we went to China […more]
November 18th Exploring San Jose
Once you get a lay of the land San Jose's downtown is fairly easy. When we started looking at the trip we didn't bother looking too much into the Barrio Amon it was too far away. We were at Calle(street) 25, Ave 2, a long away from Central, and Amon was something like almost as […more]
Nov 17th Museum of Gold
Day one in San Jose We slept well through the night. Bonnie says she heard the train a couple of times, I didn't until I was awake, very early according to Costa Rica, not so much according to home time. We had french toast for breakfast and then headed out. We got to the Legislative […more]
2015 Nov 16
Made it to Costa Rica. We left this morning at 4am and made it to Costa Rica without a problem. We were worried about finding the AirBnB place but the instructions that we were given were good. There was a lady here to meet us and she took us to the local supermarket for provisions. […more]
February 24 The long wait home.
There used to be a bus that left Varadero and got into the airport at about noon. It was just before the main onslaught of people for the flight home. By the time we were through the lineup and into immigration the lineups were wall to wall. They killed that bus. The new bus leaves […more]
February 23 Beach day.
There is hardly a breeze at all. At 8am it is starting to get hot. Varadero will be quiet, all of the resort beaches will be packed tightly. Yesterday was cool but there were a lot of people on the beach, good sunburning weather. We are off to the bus station to get tickets (hopefully). […more]
February 22 Cigars, and lunch at Al Capone’s
We had breakfast at Elisa and Pepe's barely making it awake for our 8 am breakfast. We were slow to get going after than but were out to get “our” cigars for the trip home. Bonnie has got a bad habit, she got her full quota of 50 cigars, I'm only bringing home 26. Mind […more]
February 21 Varadero again, Elisa and Pepe’s
We heard that John is home and looking forward to going to Alma for his game of 45s. We should be home in time for that. We have been to Elisa and Pepe's enough that it almost feels like home. It is the beginning and end of every trip. It is a great way to […more]
February 20 A good bye to Holguin, We hoped, and a long wait to see if we could get on the bus.
Got a text from Nicole they are going to keep John a little longer to get his meds adjusted. Good news everything is going well. We've got a day to put in as the bus leaves at 2345 tonight. We have just about covered all there is to see in Holguin. We walked around and […more]
February 19 The Plaza de Revolution, the stadium, art gallery and another good restaurant.
We got up and had breakfast. We are rapidly running out of stuff to see in Holguin, even with a day chewed out for bureaucracy. We walked over to the Plaza de Revolution where they have huge rallies every May 1st. We got lost on our way and a nice cuban guy named Ramon walked […more]
February 18 A long set of stairs, people watching, and two good restaurants.
La Loma de la Cruz is a long staircase 465 steps divided into nice bite sized (twenty five step) pieces between every landing. We walked to the bottom of the staircase and then started our way up. It took us a while but we made it up with out any issues other than there was […more]
February 17th Nicole, a long line and a great restaurant.
We were sitting at the breakfast table beside the phone when it rang. The owner of the casa answered and handed the phone to me. It was Nicole. My stepfather John, 92 had had a heart attack, not serious but anything at 92 is serious enough. I told Nicole that we were planning on hitting […more]
February 16 Off to Holguin, and a phone call you never want to get but are happy to get just the same.
We were up and checked out of our casa, the bicycle taxi rode us out to the Viazul station and we were off. We were on standby for the run to Holguin and got the last two seats at the back of the bus. A few of the bumps Bonnie and I, as well as […more]
February 15, Castro’s hideout.
We were up early, we had breakfast scheduled for 6:30, pick up by the taxi at 7. We set the alarm for 6 and opened our bedroom door at 6:25 to complete blackness, at this point we didn't expect to have breakfast. But one thing we have noticed is that if you are walking anywhere […more]
February 14, The Botanical Garden, Public art, and the tricycle rides.
The guide that our casa owner arranged to take us to the Botanical Gardens has a casa himself. He wanted to see his guest to the bus station so he asked if we could delay from 9 to 9:30, no problem for us. He took us out and they didn't have any CUC receipts either […more]
February 13 No tickets, almost a museum, and a good restaurant
Our first job of the day while it is relatively cool is to head up to the bus station to get tickets out of town. We walked up the bus station and the Viazul office was not interested in giving us a reservation to Holguin. Viazul really is starting to suck. The system they had […more]
February 12 An early escape from Santigo de Cuba and arrival in Bayamo.
We had to leave our casa at 530 am so we were the only ones up leaving the casa. I opened the door at 520 and the taxi driver was waiting so we were early leaving. The trip to Bayamo is short so we arrived at the bus station at a reasonable time. We even […more]
