• Cycling to the top with stops for Cake – Part 1
• Cycling to the top with stops for Cake – Part 2
• Cycling to the top with stops for Cake – Part 3
• Cycling to the top with stops for Cake – Part 4
• Cycling to the top with stops for Cake – Part 5

Below are my twitter posts made during the trip and a rough map of our route.

• Penzance to St Ives via Lands End. A few big hills mousehole in particular. Lovely cream tea. Sunset dinner + camp on a cliff above St Ives.
• St Ives to Padstow very hilly but beautiful coast and every time you go up you get to come down. Rick Stein fish n chips for dinner yum yum.
• Padstow to Okehampton rolling hills n wobbling legs. A day of rain but good to know pasties are waterproof. Bunk house tonight to dry shoes.
• Okie to Holman Clavel lots of sunshine made my 7 hours cycling a bit easier. Hills a bit smaller legs just as tired. No local snacks today.
• HC to Priddy grey day but good views over somerset and lots of flat rd for a change. Wet evening in tent but local bacon + cider make it OK.
• No cell signal for a few days so no updates. Priddy to llanthony a big day. Severn bridge crossed. Enter the welsh valley as sun slides away
• Llanthony rest day for ems birthday. Washing. Bike tidy up. Bit of a hill walk to top of ridge then pub dinner with more than 3 ingredients.
• Llanthony to bishops castle. Beautiful bike ride from llanthony big downhill to hay on wye. Bbq for dinner and pitch with a view…again.
• BC to chester. Early climb over stiperstones with cake stop. A mostly flat grey day. Pitch view of calves + cows. Nav challenge of Lvpl 2mw
• Chester to Ormskirk via lvrpl. Zigzag along Wirral ferry cross the Mersey. Shards of glass, shutter doors, face down arrest. View of hedge.
• Ormskirk to Hawkshead. Massive day on flat plains. Brooding hills + thunder clouds ahead as we climbed hill from windermere. View of ducks.
• I just ate: bacon + mushrooms, muesli + fruit, steak slice, triple choc cheesecake + bannana milkshake. I think cycling is making me hungry
• Hawkshead to keswick. Rest day but got few miles done as sunny. Ride by Thirlmere lovely. View of White Pike hill from tent. Midges attack!
• Keswick to Anan. On Carrock Fell roaming ponies tried to eat ems towel. Lucky bike faster than pony. View of huge blue sky above Solway.
• Anan to Coylton. Cairspharn very remote sheep + wind. No accom in towns of boarded up houses. Camp in farmers field. View of million midges!
• Coylton to Brodick. Long coastal run to ferry then steep hill. Rhubarb crumble for lunch. B&B tonight after farmers field need a duvet.
• Brodick to Kilmelford. Coast to ferry low steel skies. Lunch at Tarbert co-op flapjacks rule. Camped in yard
  of pub. Midges bad again.
• Kilmelford to Fort William. Cool morn then hot. Swim in a loch max 2mins. Busy road to campsite beneath Ben Nevis. View of summit at sunset.
• FW to Inverness. Canal + Forest paths along lochs feels like a newly found land.Uphill to 400m for views across loch ness. View of fence.
• Inverness to Helmsdale. Lots of main roads today as few options. Saw seals bathing in sun. Tea + scone fixed my knee. Best hostel in world.
• Helmsdale to Thurso. Maybe best ride of trip. Big empty eggshell sky. Hills looming. Lochs reflecting. Deep fried dinner. View of thunder.
• Thurso to JOG. Windy ride. Think legs knew end was nigh. Photos with bikes. We made it. Celebratory bacon + square sausage bun. Onto Wick.

View LEJOG June/July 2009 in a larger map

Easter weekend we caught the train to Kings Lynn and then cycled following National Cycle Route (NCR) 1 across to Wighton with a detour to Holkham Hall and Wells-Next-The-Sea for best fish n chips ever. From Wighton Regional Cycle Route (RCR) 30 to Cromer. The next day we cycled down the coast again on RCR 30 to Hemsbey then followed our noses inland to Coltishall. Day three saw us return across country lanes to Kings Lynn. All up 300km or so not a bad longish ride for the first of the year and nice to stretch the legs a little beyond the daily commute. See map below for route details and photos.

View Norfolk Coast in a larger map

So India then….Somewhere I hadn’t really thought of going to before but its warm, the food is awesome, the UK pound is still worth something, lots of tea and my work flies to Goa so I can get a discounted flight. I wasn’t really sure what else but as I researched more I realised how much there was to do in South India and what a diverse place it was. Not really surprising for a region with a history of being invaded and ruled by so many different countries over the years. We only had two weeks so we decided to follow a vaguely circular route and travel south from Goa to Kerala spending roughly one week in each state. We got our jabs, bought the painfully expensive malaria tablets, packed summer clothes scarcely believing it could be warm away from a London in the grip of winter and set off on our way.

Arriving in Goa and travelling to Panjim we stepped into what seemed to be a world of clichés with a horn abusing driver, traffic and people mingling with cows and dogs on the side of the roads. After checking into the Panjim Inn and being invited to have a ridiculously overpriced breakfast we caught our first auto-rickshaw to Old Goa. By now the day was heating up (it was later to turn out the temperature was close to 40 Celsius a record for the area) and we conducted a quick circuit of the churches interspersed with eating fresh coconuts and toasted nuts. The following day we spent a little time wandering around Panjim soaking in the business and seeming pandemonium of the streets and waterfront.

Later that day we caught a flight to Kerala landing in Cochi around 7pm at night and travelling on by taxi to Fort Cochin, where we stayed at the wonderful Walton’s Home stay. I made a slight fo-par the following day revealing we had drunk beer from teapots in a local unlicensed café which it seems is a fact well known to travellers but not to the locals of Fort Cochin. Our time in Fort Cochin flew by with a shopping trip to Ernakulum and trying to figure out where we were going to travel to next. We decided to head into the hills and visit Periyar Nature Reserve and caught a local bus which took 7 hours to travel 170km but did have onboard Bollywood movies and Indian popular music CD’s so not all bad.

Arriving in Kumily we collected our tickets for the activities we had booked and checked into the Coffee Inn. Border Trekking saw a group of five plus two guides spend the day hiking around the outskirts of the Periyar reserve. Early in the day we saw wild Elephants feeding on bamboo followed by a slightly to close encounter with an Indian Gaur. The following day Bamboo Rafting involved a much bigger group of people and lot less effort as we drifted for a few hours across the lake to our destination for lunch and swimming. In the evening as we walked back to the park entrance we found some elephants out in the open quietly feeding and I really wished I had a better zoom lens. Our guides got very excited when we saw a Cobra snake fly across the path which amazed me it was quick as lightning and slithery like a… well a snake I guess.

The day we left Periyar we had our best bus ride yet in a Rally Championship bus or at least the driver though he was competing even if his passengers didn’t. Arriving in Kottayam we caught a public ferry through the backwaters to Alleppey. The ferry ride was a great introduction to the backwaters as we glided past people washing, fishing, mending, fighting and generally living their lives on and alongside the canals. Alleppey saw our first major encounter with touts and resulted in us staying at what we dubbed the “Reality TV Student Home stay” due to its owners seeming to have no idea how to run a home stay. We hired a paddler and a canoe for a day and toured around the backwaters spending an hour at a family home where we saw wedding photos, ate tapioca, watched cable TV and talked a lot about our lives and their lives. On the return leg of the trip I decided to give paddling a go and gained a new respect for the strength of our guide. Alleppey is a mecca for people wanting to stay on Rice Barges but outside of these the town is not a tourist friendly one with most things shut by early evening leading to early nights and few options for eating out.

Leaving Alleppey we travelled back to Fort Cochin for one night before catching an overnight train from Ernakulum to Agonda Beach. Our train trip was interesting in that we met an older lady from the Brahmin caste who talked to us for hours on end about her view of the world which was somewhat unique due to her upbringing in India. After turning in I spent a sleepless night in my bunk scared we would miss our stop every time the train slowed down but I needn’t have feared the conductor and our friendly lady made sure we got off at the right stop.

The right stop turned out to be a dark empty train station with only a sleepy auto-rickshaw driver with a cold for company. He drove us to Agonda Beach and dropped us off instructing us to go sit on the beach till it got light. Sitting on the beach we quickly made friends with the local roaming dog population who followed us for most of the rest of the morning as we searched out accommodation amongst the many places on offer. We finally settled on a beach hut at Agonda Paradise where we stayed for the next 4 nights. Spending our time swimming (6 swims on the first day alone!), eating fresh seafood, drinking beer, watching the stars I quickly began to feel like I could just stay on the beach hut porch forever.

Alas I couldn’t stay forever and we left Agonda and India behind flying home to a somewhat colder and more windswept London. I think having visited the places I did in South India that a longer trip is definitely on the cards at some stage in the future.

View Larger Map

Well slack old me has not posted to my blog since way back in June and that is just disgraceful but is I hope an indication of how busy Ive been in the last 5 months or so.

From my last post I mentioned that we were looking into moving house and that is partly why posting has been delayed. It took me two months to get an internet connection in new house due to the incompetence of Tiscali. Made me realise how dependent on broadband I am. Anyways new house is lovely with some friendly housemates. We have just spend a wonderful christmas day in our new flat with Turkey, Ham, wine, cider and my awesome red Xmas jumper as shown in pics. I got and gave some awesome presents including a Joe Blow standing pump for extra awesome bike tyre pumping action, a print of london life for Emma, some nice music by Bon Iver and Fleet Foxes and an adult sized space hopper.

November saw Emma writing a novel as part of National Novel writing month. Kind of strange to have a girlfriend so consumed by a single activity needing to write around 1500 words every day. Im massively proud of Em though and hopefully she will let me read the finished product…just as soon as she completed National novel editing month in the new year.

Going back a few months before xmas to September we did a cycling trip around Normandy over a week covering about 400km or so. This was our first major trip cycling and camping with all our gear on our bikes. Emma is in the process of writing this trip up so rather than repeat everything I will link to her blog when its done. A few highlights of the trip however were:

• Cycling so much the first day I almost fainted (about 80km with no sleep into a headwind) and then eating a hot cheese filled croissant to restore strength
• Camping in a massive rain storm and not getting wet at all. Praise the Macpac tent!
• Cycling past boulangerie after boulangerie snacking at each one
• Drinking cider beside the Seine in the sun watching freighters from Hong Kong steam past
• Cycling through acres of apple orchards smelling blossoms and shouting bonjour to friendly farmers and dogs
• Watching kites at the Dieppe kite festival. Nothing like a massive flying penguin to cheer you up after a day of rainy cycling
• Finding a quiet spot on the ferry back to england to sleep the night through and waking to a glorious sunny morning over white cliffs of dover

So overall a very successful trip and something we will do a lot more of in future. Heres a map of where we went.

View Larger Map

Towards the end of August we took a bank holiday weekend holiday in the Lake district with a night in Liverpool along the way. In Liverpool we played the tourist bit as having less than 24 hours we decided doing a Beatles tour was the only way to go. Besides the obvious Beatles nostalgia Liverpool is a very vibrant city lots of interesting arts and cultural events along with music around almost every corner you turn.

After leaving Liverpool we travelled north to the Lake District home to Beatrix Potter and met up with some friends at a cottage we had rented for a few days. We had a lovely day of cycling along quiet country lanes with views across hills, valleys and lakes. Em and I took a slightly unplanned off road route at one point emerging in a disused quarry to be met by some rock climbers cooking sausages on a BBQ. We eagerly ate a few sausages and bread and chatted about NZ before heading down one of the longest downhill descents Ive done it seemed endless and was welcome reward for our off road climb. The remainder of our time in the Lake District the weather was fairly wet but thst didnt stop us enjoying the log fire at our cottage and the hospitality of a few local pubs and cafes.

Well thats a short summary of the last few months. Tomorrow we head off to Eyemouth in the Scottish borders where we have rented a cottage for a week. We plan to have a road trip up there then a bit of walking and a lot of relaxing. If Im making any resolutions on New Years eve I will try and remember my blog and maybe rashly promise to update more frequently. So expect some further notes on events during 2009.

Its been a fairly active last month or so covering the full spectrum of music, cycling, eating, working and playing. Actually on reflection that’s just your normal kind of month but if I didn’t introduce it as exciting you would never read any further. So onto some of the things I have been up to.

After we got back from Italy Emma headed off to Finland for a work conference and then took a few days afterwards with some workmates to do some walking. I spent the week at home wishing I was on holiday still and wishing I hadn’t decided £350 wasn’t to much for a ticket to Finland.

We then entered into June where we had the three weekends filled with activities starting off with Epsom Derby Day. We sat on the hill with picnic blankets cider and the obligatory bottle of sauvignon blanc/rose/champers dont you know. I think I might have won a few quid but when you are betting the princely sums of up to £3 a race its easy to lose track of these things.

The following weekend we took a bike ride out to see our friends Laurie and Anita and their kids. We planned to cycle a circular route called Chiltern Heritage Trail that we found on the Chiltern Council Website. This was ideal as Prestwood where Laurie and Anita live was around half way through. After finally finding the start (It all looked much simpler on the PDA phone) it was a really good ride. The terrain was nice and varied and thre were loads of quiet little villages and country pubs to stop at. The reason for our visit was the end of season football bash with a covers band, really cheap beer and dancing till the wee hours. The next day after a cooked breakfast supplied by Laurie we continued on our way around the rest of the circular route back to Amersham.

The next week was filled with some frantic present buying for Emma’s birthday which was actually kind of easy as we travel light the rules were strict nothing big and everything needed to be practical. So an SD memory card and a solar panel along with a few cycling books it was. The following weekend we went to a Silent Disco at the South Bank Center where Andrew Weatherall was playing as part of the Massive Attack curated Meltdown festival, which was very awesome. Being able to have loud thumping music one minute then order a beer in a normal voice then jump back on a different channel for some nice electro and breakbeat. Ive done this once before at Glastonbury but adding the sophistication of the South Bank Centre was very nice.

The evening of 22nd June saw us at Radiohead in Victoria Park which was another very awesome night. Im a Radiohead convert via Emma so I cant say I recognised every song but the ones I knew were awesome and theres nothing like being pushed around in a mosh pit by kids half your age to make you feel like an old man, who is hopefully still young at heart.

Interspersed amongst this fun stuff we have decided to move out of our flat a combination of other flatmates leaving and very difficult to deal with estate agents have driven us to this. Normally we use The Gumtree website when flat hunting but this time as we wanted to search a few different suburbs I decided to write a little screen scraping code to merge a few different Gumtree website searched into a single search result set. Its still pretty rough and ready but does the trick and I find it much easier to read than the main site.

For my birthday this year my lovely girlfriend Emma decided to arrange a trip to Italy and not just any old part of Italy but to a town called Riomaggiore think fishing boats, winding streets, focaccia bread and houses coloured by a child with a penchant for pastels. We flew to Genova and then trained our way down the coast catching glimpses of a picture perfect summers day, blue ocean, rocky inlets and a myriad of villages filled with houses piled up high like building blocks as we sped through tunnels.

As we approached Riomaggiore the tunnels seemed to get longer and the glimpses of towns shorter with the station we arrived at being half hidden inside a tunnel. We collected the keys to our apartment we had rented through Mar-Mar and dropped our bags only pausing long enough to take in the view through the village from our terrace. We picked up some deliciously fresh focaccia bread and walked our way down to the end of the coastal path that connects the 5 villages of Cinque Terre. A short walk away was a quiet rocky beach where I sat in the sun feeling a million miles away from London while Em paddled and soaked up the sun. We ended the day with a walk along the Via dell’Amore, dinner pizza and steamed seafood accompanied by wine. A perfect holiday already and it was only the first day!

Although I could have sworn I heard every ring of the local church clock through the night I woke up the next day ready for our planned walk along the coast to Monterossa. The weather was a little grey however the forecast was for rain the next day so we decided to setout, after a little breakfast focaccia of course. The walk follows the coast and is around 9km long taking 5hours. The initial stretch from Riomaggiore to Manarola is a wide paved path perched high on the cliffs so you spend most of your time looking down at the sea or ahead to how far you have to walk. From Manarola to Corniglia the track descends a little and becomes more dirt than pavement but is still easy going. Approaching Corniglia which perches atop a hill you begin to wonder how you are going to get up to the village, the answer is one of the longest set of steps I’ve climbed for a while. Corniglia to Vernazza the path is a lot more like a hiking path and I was glad of my mountain-jandals. We stopped half way along to eat out bread, ham and tomatoes we had brought along seeming to time it perfectly with about 50 school kids all wanting to go past us the other way. Vernazza we stopped for an ice-cream and enjoyed what is probably the most beautiful town along the walk with its picture postcard harbour and castle tower. Vernazza to Monterossa was probably the hardest part of the walk as it came at the end and had some fairly steep sections of track. Approaching Monterossa we found a bar for a quick drink then time headed home to cook a delicious dinner of local fresh ingredients on pasta.

The day of my birthday dawned pretty wet and grey making our plans of heading back to Monterossa for the Sagra dei Limoni or Lemon Festival look a little unlikely. After a morning of lazing around the house the rain began to ease and we decided to give the Lemon festival a go. Arriving in Monterossa it seemed like the locals had also been put off doing much towards the celebration of all things lemon. We spent a few hours wandering around the streets and shops before we began to see a few lemon themed decorations appearing outside shops. It wasn’t long till the sun had begun to glimmer behind the low clouds and we were eating lemon slices while watching a stage being erected for the concert happening later in the evening. After a dinner of fresh seafood and watching other tables get served huge urns of seafood stew with whole lobsters and fish in it we went outside to discover what the music was like. Earlier in the day a local had advised us that the band were the most world famous Italian band ever so we had high hopes. I think it’s safe to say that most other world famous bands have nothing to fear from Ricchi E Poveri although they provided a lovely way to end my most unusual birthday to date.

The next day it was time to head home to London and after a very scenic train ride inland to Parma where we flew out from we had a hectic time getting to the airport involving catching a bus the wrong way, a massive thunderstorm appearing from nowhere and the final football match of the season occupying every cab in town. Em and I arrived panting at the check in desk with minutes to spare only to discover the flight was delayed by an hour or so. The final moment of panic was me leaving my camera on the plane and only realizing after clearing customs, proving once again that this was the perfect holiday another passenger had picked it up, found me in the airport and returned it.

I had one of the most diverse and interesting holidays filled with surprises and best of all was celebrating my birthday yet again with my lovely partner Emma who arranged the whole holiday so thank you so much.

View Larger Map

Somehow I have managed to catch the worst disease I have ever experienced, Chickenpox. Ive had my body covered in bedbug bites, scabies crawling all over my skin and been devoured by midges but nothing compares to the itchiness and irritation of Chickenpox. On top of the itchiness you also get all the symptoms of a very bad case of the flu with headaches, muscle pain and lethargy.

When I felt myself getting sick around 5 days or so ago I put it down to a seasonal flu and took a few paracetamol then off to work. By the end of last Friday I thought something more was up as it was more than I could do just to pull the duvet up more snugly around my neck. Waking on Saturday morning I had a few tell-tale bumps and after a quick call to NHS direct I confirmed it was Chickenpox.

The last few days have been spent trying not to scratch any of the well over 200 bumps on my body and dosing myself at regular intervals with anti-histamines and flu remedies. Ive also been reading up about Chickenpox online and finding out that adult Chickenpox is not quite as rare as I first thought.

Im hoping that as the bumps start to scab over in the next few days I will feel a little better and that the itchiness will decrease a little. I usually have a very good level of health but catching Chickenpox has pretty much floored me forcing me to sleep a lot and despite my best efforts trying to do any type of work from home just tires me out to much. I think Chickenpox is worse in adults than children so if you have kids do your best to spare them this in later life try and get them infected as soon as you can!

So this weekend has seen a few things going on which I thought it was worth writing a few words about. The weather has been pretty cold for starters with the most snow we have seen all winter. The snow wasn’t very heavy and didn’t stick around long but its still magical to see the garden and streets temporarily transformed.

Em and I have spent some of the weekend planning our next bike trip which is a 6 day route around Normandy in France. Its going to be a pretty much circular route starting at Dieppe heading west along the coast, back inland to follow the seine to Rouen and then north along the avenue verte to Dieppe

View Larger Map

Ive also been watching the TV coverage of the London leg of the 2008 Olympic torch relay with all of the associated protests. Its a fairly highly charged event and the police presence gives it a fairly ominous overtone I think. I think the very high level of media attention will hopefully raise the profile of the Free Tibet movement and bring the issues around China’s occupation of Tibet out into the open.

On a somewhat different note I’ve been investigating the new .Net MVC framework and am really impressed with how flexible and easy it is to work with. I’m still in the early stages of using this but combining it with the ADO.Net Entity Framework Tools as per the instructions on Brad Abrams tutorial.

Havana – 21 Feb to 24 Feb

We arrived in Havana in the early afternoon and by the time we had changed some money at the airport and shared a cab into town with a French guy we met it was around 16:00. The cab driver charged us CUC$30 which we later found should have been more like CUC$25 but no biggie. Our first night was spent with Roberti y Ladys as our original choice of Casa Mercedes couldn’t take us due to some weird security restrictions related to a religious visit taking place at a nearby cathedral. We dumped our stuff in a basic but OK room changed into shorts, sandals and t-shirts and headed out to explore what we could which gave us a mixed first impression of Havana as we headed to the Malecon and into Centro Havana rather than Havana Vieja.

The next day we met the people sharing our Casa from the UK and tagged along on a fascinating walking tour they had arranged after moving to our original Casa Mercedes. This was really interesting and it was good to talk with the Cuban guide about the city and her day to day life in general. We ended the day a little foot sore and with our heads overflowing with facts and knowledge about mainly Havana Vieja. Our host at Casa Mercedes had prepared us a list of recommended casa particulares which would prove very useful throughout the rest of our trip.

On our third day in Havana we set out to walk through Centro Havana towards the University and then onto Revolution Square. Centro Havana was filled with Saturday morning bustle of kids playing baseball, fruit and veggie markets and miscellaneous cars, bikes and donkey carts. Revolution square was imposing empty of people and hard to imagine it filled with crowds absorbing the words of politics. A quick ride in one of the fleet of Coco taxis took us to the Coppelia ice cream palace a Cuban institution but where we were relegated to a tourist only stand which was a little disappointing as masses of locals queued around the block to get in. We ended the day with a last night in Havana Vieja drinking beers at a taverna and listening to one of the many roving music groups.

Vinales Valley – 24 Feb to 26 Feb

We caught a Viazul bus to the Vinales Valley which took around 3 hours and was our first taste of Cuban road systems where all traffic horses, buses, bicycles, cars, trucks etc share a motorway with no obvious lanes that seems to go on forever in either direction. When we reached Vinales itself we headed off to our pre-booked hotel La Ermita situated high on the hills above the Vinales town-ship. The 20min walk up to the hotel was not recommended by locals but gave some awesome views along the valley. After checking in we proceeded to go for a very welcome swim in the pool and then retired to our terrace to drink rum and cokes while watching the sun set. Very easy to close your eyes and imagine a life that was like this permanently.

Waking up and having a leisurely breakfast we walked into town around 9:30 hoping to rent bikes for a days cycling around the valley only to find that all the hikes were long gone. Not to be put off we decided to walk our way to a few of the local sites which were only a few kilometers away according to our guide book. The guide book author has obviously not walked the road before as it is much further than a few kilometers. Along the way a man in a horse and cart picked us up as we looked pretty tired. He dropped us at the first Cuevas Del Indio which was fairly disappointing filled with a large empty bar. We continued up the road to the next much more interesting cave where we went on a short boat trip before sitting out the midday sunshine and beginning our walk back to town.

Trinidad – 26 Feb to 28 Feb

The next morning we were picked up by a private taxi with the same couple from Havana we went on the walking tour with for the trip to Trinidad. This was a much quicker and only slightly more expensive option than catching a bus via Havana. Arriving in Trinidad in the afternoon we dropped our stuff off at our casa and went out for a walk around Trinidad taking in the central plaza and walking to the top of a nearby hill for some amazing views across Trinidad and out to the coast. Later in the evening we watched some live music sitting on the steps at the Casa de Musica.

The next day in Trinidad we went for a longer walk up the hill from the previous evening and then proceeded downhill through the old city and into the more residential areas to the South and East of the city. The city is very compact meaning it is easy to explore the whole thing in a day or so. We also visited the Bandit museum and climbed to the top of the bell tower which presented a lot of good photo opportunities. This evenings music at the Casa de Musica featured a lot more salsa style dancing and felt a little contrived due to the number of tourists watching but was still entertaining.

La Boca – 28 Feb to 01 Mar

The next day we headed off to La Boca for our first taste of Cuban beaches. We had picked La Boca as it was close to Trinidad and the beautiful Ancon peninsula. Arriving at our recommended casa we felt instantly relaxed with views across the beach from the porch and the only sounds those of fishermen working on their boats down the dusty road. To complete the perfect picture the garden had a resident hummingbird who seemed interested in our presence on the porch. In the afternoon we borrowed a couple of old bikes complete with semi-flat tyres and a seat that was not fixed in place. We persevered with them though and cycled the length of the peninsula around 6km from our casa stopping for an afternoon swim at a beach attached to one of the resorts.

We had today hoped to do some more cycling in the surrounding countryside but based on the quality of the bikes we decided to opt for another day at the beach instead. We set out around 10am and stopped at the first beach we had passed the day before which was almost deserted except for the friendly attendant who told us he had shivered his way through the previous night when the temperature had plummeted to 10 degrees or so. We spent the day swimming and lazing on the beach here with afternoon snorkeling showing up an amazing variety of fish of all types and colours on the nearby coral reef.

Today we were due to depart for Santa Clara by bus in the afternoon so spent a couple of hours wandering around La Boca and watching the local fishermen. We also got a small taste of how La Boca fills with locals at the weekend as a busload of people arrived and were I think amazed that we as tourists had chosen La Boca over the resorts further down the peninsula.

Santa Clara – 01 Mar to 02 Mar

As we left Trinidad by bus the most major rain of our trip began and quickly turned into a torrential downpour showing how the countryside around Trinidad remains so green and fertile. We arrived in Santa Clara after around 3 hours or so where it was still bucketing down and were met by the host of our casa Hugo who quickly bundled us into a horse and covered wagon taxi for the trip into town. The driver setup a tarpaulin arrangement that was pretty good at keeping us dry and we galloped off to Hugo’s casa.

We went out in search of dinner to find Santa Clara a fairly dark city with intermittent power supply to the street lights. We eventually found a local place to eat where we paid in local pesos making it one of the cheapest meals we ate in Cuba. After dinner despite this being a university town we couldn’t find all that much to do and ended up heading home fairly early.

The next day was spent visiting the various Che Guevara memorials and absorbing life in the central square of Santa Clara where we managed to eat a wide range of street food mainly different types of deep fried batter. In the early evening we caught a bus to Varadero home of the all inclusive resort and hundreds of package holiday makers.

Varadero – 02 Mar to 04 Mar

We ended up staying in an OK hotel almost on the beach and spent the next two days swimming, eating weird food types like Cuban/Chinese and generally soaking up sunshine. Varadero is a weird slice of the western world in Cuba complete with Mini-Putt golf, loads of traffic and tacky souvenirs. Its main redeeming feature is the beach which is beautiful and even when filled with people it’s still possible to find a quiet spot to down a few rum and cokes.

Havana – 04 Mar to 06 Mar

We returned to Havana to spend our last few days in Cuba exploring the parts of the city we had missed first time round which included Havana del Este and its various fortresses, Casa Blanca and the Malecon. The Malecon on this particular afternoon remains one of my personal highlights of our trip with blazing sunshine, huge waves and stacks of people screaming at the sea as it soaked them to the skin. We had a last Mojito on the roof of Ambos Mundos where we heard the 9pm cannon explosion and watched lightning play across the sky as if in reply.

View Larger Map