Californication

What a great way to end our ‘vacation’.

Sitting at The Farm café on the Malibu pier with just a few hours to reflect and savor all the American-ness before we start the trek home. 

LA has far exceeded our expectations. As we anticipated, it is very spread-out, a bit smoggy (nothing serious) and the traffic is gnarly, but the up-sides more than offset these elements.

We wasted no time doing the most touristy thing you can do, and jumped on the hop-on / hop-off bus to explore LA.  Compared to some other cities we have done this in, this one is worth a mention.  There are 4 main routes (and a couple of extra connections), which cover the main points of interest with some informative narration along the way.  It did take a long time, because due to the size of LA, each route took at minimum 2 hours without getting off to explore. 

In the little time we had in LA, we feel that we made the most of it.  We walked along Santa Monica pier and Venice beach, window shopped in Rodeo Drive, wandered through the 3^rd St mall and poked around Sunset Boulevard.  

We had a look around Hollywood Boulevard looking for Johnny Depp’s walk of fame star:

 We didn’t find it L, but we did find one dedicated to Donald Trump instead (hehe):

We took a stroll through the streets of Beverley Hills, to check out how the rich and famous live.  Interestingly, each street is lined with a single type of tree to distinguish itself from the others:

The stand-outs were the beach areas of Santa Monica and Venice.  Wide sandy strips, calm seas, a variety of attractions such as the famous skate park, ‘White Men Can’t Jump’ basketball courts, muscle beach, Gold’s gym and lots of really American shop stalls along the boardwalk.  Both beach areas were nice, but quite different despite being situated next to each other: Santa Monica clean, up-market, manicured, and typically ‘Baywatch’, whilst Venice gritty and raw, strewn with ‘trash’ and homelessness, typically ‘Grand Theft Auto’.

Celebrity spotting delivered modest results.  We bumped into Adam Godley at the Cheesecake Factory (yeah, we had to look him up, too – J only recognized him from Suits).  The cheesecake was delicious!

We spent a fun evening at The Comedy Store.  Great value – only $15 for an all-night line-up of comics doing 15min sets.  Some good, some bad but overall, a great thing to have done.  J was happy that Joey Diaz showed up to try some new material (me – not so thrilled with his performance).

We nearly ended up taking part in a live audience recording of the Dr Phil show, but logistics worked against us.

Uber is a life-saver here.  The fact that it’s so popular means that there are always cars near by, and people to ride-share with to halve your fare, if you want to.  Uber took us shopping last night to successfully clear out more stores.  The trip was a 2-hour affair across town in peak hour traffic, for only 8 bucks.  Bargain! 

We packed up our stuff with sadness this morning and checked out of our fabulous accommodation.  You always win some and lose some with accommodation when travelling and this one was definitely a win.  A granny flat at the side of our Airbnb host’s house was clean and well equipped.  The bed was way too comfy, and the fridge filled with snacks and drinks. 

We will miss LA.

Ahead is a 16-hour flight home, just enough time to mentally prepare for work on Monday.

Vinales, CUBA

Cuba’s best yet (we think).  People seem really friendly and the place welcoming.  

Food also rates higher than Trinidad or Havana.  We found this awesome Mediterranean restaurant and on the menu was an actual real salad (with dressing)!  Our host (Ridel) is a cheerful guy and has been very helpful from the start.  As soon as we arrived to his brand new casa (still building the rooftop terrace and the bottom floor), he organized our day by booking a trip to the tobacco fields.  It seems that a horseback ride through the tobacco fields is the main attraction of the town, and it was worth it.  We were given a demo on rolling a cigar (whilst smoking one) and observed the coffee bean preparation process surrounded by magnificent valley views.  The whole trip took about 4 hours, after which Gosia and Carmelito (the horse) became best friends.  

Unsurprisingly, we are now sitting at a tapas bar drinking pina coladas.  Ahh…life is tough in this part of the world.

 Tonight, we are looking forward to dinner at the ‘best restaurant in town’, Ridel’s house.  Sadly, we are leaving this place tomorrow morning, back to Havana for a couple of days before slowly making our way home stopping in LA.

Trinidad, CUBA

We both are getting the time to relax properly here.  3 full days in this charming town gave us the time to look around, drink lots of mojitos (they are only $1.50!), salsa with the locals, play the drums in the local band (yes, really!) laze around on the beach and still have time to read books and watch movies.

Time doesn’t really have a meaning here.  Everything happens in its’ own time, buses leave and arrive whenever, waiting staff are never in any rush to serve you or get you out to free up the table for someone else (even though there might be a queue), shop assistants work in slow motion, too.

It would get frustrating very quickly normally, but we keep reminding ourselves that we are on holidays, so time is of no consequence to us or them.

There is live music on almost every corner. 

Sitting here on the rooftop terrace of our apartment, we can hear it from 3 different locations.  All Cuban / Enrique Iglesias style.  Charming.  On our first night, after dinner of some pig-on-a-spit and plenty of rum with some German travellers, we spent some time in the main square where locals drank rum on park benches and danced the night away.  It was just awesome. 

But as with lots of other things, the positives come with the negatives.  No matter how much we try, we cannot find food of any nutritional value.  Everything seems to be deep fried or covered in sugar.   No fresh veggies or fruit anywhere.  I scored a fresh fruit salad today, but only as an order off a restaurant menu, to go.  Jake found some Pringles today, and got very excited.  (I think he can’t wait to open them for dinner.)  How I miss my granola with natural greek yogurt, berries and pepitas for breakfast!!

But so cheap!!  A 750ml bottle of rum = $4.  A cone of delicious fresh churros = 50cents.  90min massage = $25.  

Mum, walking around the shops, you would be reminded of the old days in Poland where there are only a few random things available, none of it particularly enticing or presented well.  One shop had some washing powder, rum and oil.  One shop has light globes and some plumbing supplies, but nothing else. Another (a bakery) 3 or 4 varieties of cakes and some bread rolls.  The next time you visit, there are different items in these shops.  You just never know what you’re going to get and where to find what you need.  The Cubans don’t care much for the façade.  The shop counters are dirty, half empty, full of flies and half of it sits in the dark due to broken lights.

So much randomness.  The cigar shop sold us a cigar and you could stock up on your rum there, too, but you could not get a lighter or matches to light your new purchase with.  And no advice on where you possibly could find this somewhere else.  Luckily, we scored one in the shop selling Pringles near-by.

We took a bus to the beach today (Playa Ancon).  

We actually got really lucky to even find the bus, because the pick up location, route times and price suddenly changed overnight, no signage anywhere.  We happened to go into the information office yesterday and asked the question, otherwise we would have missed it altogether.  When we arrived at the given pick up location, a man approached us and pointed to the bus and mentioned departure and pick up times and prices.  Seriously…this place could do with some basic signs, marketing etc. 

The banks and some shops keep the door locked and allow only a few people in at a time.  So, you could be standing outside waiting, only to find out that what you were hoping to buy is not available anyway.  Maybe tomorrow??

This is the charm of Cuba.  Anything goes.  Oh, and no seatbelts in the cars, not even for a 4 hour journey across the island on the highway…

Off to Vinales in the morning.  Although the drive in the ‘collectivo’ with another Spanish couple was quite fine, we decided to pay the extra for our own private car, seeing it is a long drive and we haven’t been feeling 100% over the past few days (plus our luggage with all our warm weather gear and extra purchases at the outlet mall in Vegas is MASSIVE!)

Havana, CUBA

What can we say about this place?...

It’s crazy, gritty, fun.  Anything goes in Havana.

Even my hair did its’ own thing in this humid, warm, fabulous weather (after I spend some time straightening it in the morning)

It’s true what they say about it: it’s in a glorious state of disrepair:

We arrived really late on Thursday (after midnight) after a long day of flights and airport transfers, so pretty much hit the sack as soon as we checked into our airbnb.  The apartment has exceeded our expectations, and certainly feels like a mansion with high ceilings and separate rooms filled with natural light; compared to the shoe box in NY.

The next morning, we ventured out to get something to eat, a little apprehensively…

The breakfast place was closed (for no apparent reason; or at least unbeknown to us).  There seemed to be nothing we could access – every place appeared foreign and scary.  There were little shops everywhere, but none like we are used to.  Some sell only rice and vinegar, others a few random vegetables.  There was a pharmacy with a few medicines inside:

A bakery with a very small selection of less than appealing cakes and cookies.

It was a real challenge to find some bottled water (as we were warned by the apartment’s owner not to drink tap water).

Eventually, we found a small supermarket, with water,  some less than appealing biscuits and booze (rum).  We were asked to check in our handbag at the front, and given a number (like a coat check hehe).

We found a small café and somehow managed to order a couple of sandwiches and a coffee.  Coffee was really great (and so cheap!  50 cents!).  Sandwiches not so great, but edible.  As a matter of fact, everything is really cheap and just edible!  Cocktails $1.50, beers $2.50, meals $4-10.

Turns out we are staying in (and were wandering through) a pretty residential area, and things got a bit more lively when we found the main road. To get our bearings, we hopped on one of those hop on/hop off double decker buses.  A bit of a waste of time as we couldn’t understand a thing and it seemed to just travel between major hotels to pick up and drop off their guests.  Never mind, it helped us get our bearings. We had better luck after that.  

We needed to arrange our transport to the next town and planned to take the tourist bus, but as we found out in the government run tourist office, the buses were all booked out for the next week or so. They suggested we sign up to a thing called ‘collectivo’, meaning squashing 6-8 people into one of those old classic cars and sharing the ride to Trinidad, 5-6 hours away.  Sort of like a car-pool... This is happening tomorrow morning, we’ll see how this goes…

After that, we wandered the streets of Havana Vieja and bar hopped for mojitos.  So much fun, music, people watching.

 We had dinner and more mojitos; met some Danish tourists and even danced with a cross-dresser in a bar before we bartered our taxi fare home. 

We did more of the same today (hehehe), but with way more confidence.

We are posting this from a park next to our apartment, because only in some designated public places there is access to WiFi for a small fee.  Luckily, a spot happens to be right outside of where we live.  It is a strange sight; so many young people hanging around a park on their phones to (for ever so briefly) connect with the world.

We met some locals who tried to sell us DVDs translated into several languages.  We gently declined saying that we don’t really use DVD’s any more… It is sort of funny but also a little sad that the Cubans are missing the mark with the Western world as they try to tap into more sources of income.

We nearly got cheated our of our money with a classic tactic used over here.  There are two currencies, the local currency and the tourist currency.  The tourist currency is worth 25x the local currency, so for every 1 CUC you get 25 CUP.  Well, we were warned about this trick, but nearly fell for it anyway, by paying with the international pesos (CUCs) and receiving the change in the local money J for some fruit juice.

This is not my first mojito: 

:)