I left Havana in the afternoon and flew into Cancun on 19th Jan (having spent the daytime of the 18th in a taxi from Trinidad to Havana and the evening at the bar at Rolando's). I had decided that I would leave Cancun for a lads holiday at some point in the future. What I needed after Cuba was a few quiet days (and some clean clothes!). I stayed overnight in a hostel in downtown Cancun and witnessed some 18/19 year old Canadian & Australian kids fail to handl...

When I woke up in the morning, I noticed that I'd been feasted on. I went from having about 3 bites to more than 60 small ones over my body, arms and legs. Im guessing bedbugs. Not ideal! To make things worse the ride to Trinidad ended up being more like 13 hours rather than 9, mainly due to half the bus falling off before we got to Havana. The descent into the town, from the surrounding mountains was stunning though. Mountains to my left, and the sun sett...

The bus journey to Viñales was amazing. After about 3 hours, we got to Pinar del Rio, a small town set into a valley of limestone hills (locally referred to as mogotes). Thirty minutes on and I was in Viñales. It's a tiny town which is surrounded by crop fields (mainly tobacco) and a huge mogote range. I was met at the bus stop by Jorge, who owns the Casa with his wife Sara. We were joined by Brendan, an Aussie traveller. Having dropped our stuff off (a...

I'd finally landed in Havana. As I stood in a queue (the first of many) to exchange money, the reality of it all hit me. Day one of seven months. Scary. Nothing much to tell here - straight back to the hostel, a couple of beers and bed! Unfortunately they wouldn't accept my card at the airport, which meant that I had to hit the streets to find somewhere that would. I didn't have a map so armed with a few vague directions from other travellers and my man radar, I...