Tiene..? Tiengo..? Quiero..? Tequiero..? ....Oops!

Viva la revolucion! Well... not really.

I had planned to do a whole bit on the politics and history of this place but I don't really know enough to say my piece, but what I will say is that Cuba is such a beautiful country, so busy, vibrant and colourful and yet it's so saddening to see some of the people struggling to get by everyday, even more so for the older generation who have lived through the golden years and then have to live with all these restrictions. I'm very glad to have come here before the all the changes with the US happen, it's still somewhat...innocent? Don't really want to imagine what it's going to be like come ten years time.

All right, back to me being a "wanderer".... as you can tell from the title, I haven't had the best experience with the language so far, but thankfully I met this awesome Aussie chick named Jeanette, who slowly but surely taught me some of the basics, although it didn't help that whenever we asked for help from the locals, they would be looking at me like 'Why are you letting your white tourist friend talk you bloody Cuban??'. Inglaterra mate, Inglaterrrra!

La Habana - Valle de Vinales - Trinidad - Santa Clara - La Habana

Landing in Havana, not only did I get conned out of around a tenner at the cambio in the airport (bitch) but then I was dropped off in the dark ghetto streets of Habana Vieja, thinking what the fuck.
Thankfully found my hostel/casa - Rolandos on San Miguel - which is technically a casa particulares but has dormitory style rooms. That's the thing about Cuba, there's not really any hostels (I came across only three) so it's not really a backpacker haven. You either stay in a hotel or a government approved casa, where locals rent out a room in their homes. Cheap cheap! In some casas I paid 10 CUC per night which is like 7 or 8 pounds, this was luckily due to me sharing with others!

Habana Vieja

Couldn't wait for daytime to come so I could go exploring! The best thing was to get lost just wandering about Habana Vieja, absolutely fell in love with the architecture, the abundance of old Chevys and just the vibrant and busy streets! Obispo street was a favourite, even though it was full of tourists! It was also where we discovered 1 CUP ice creams, that's like under 1 pence!! While we're on the topic of food, my diet. My bloody diet has consisted of mainly pizzas and ice creams... wahhhh! Considering I'm trying to be on a budget, these were the cheapest and most accessible. Add in Pan con Queso / Jamon / Ceboulla... basically bread, bread and more bread! Thankfully we had a couple of salad nights in our room - much to our hosts' disdain!

Pizzzzaaaaa

I should mention the two different types of currencies in Cuba, they say that tourists can't use the CUP but we had no trouble using it! Basically, £1 = 1 CUC = 24 CUP, everything is much more expensive if you're using CUC and the locals only use CUP. So imagine our reaction when we found our ice creams or had 10 CUP pizzas! We were also tipped on a place on Calle 23 called Casa Balear (a little student hangout) which sold 10 CUP mojitos, you better believe we spent a few nights there!

Everyone was so friendly, always more than happy to help with questions or directions. I guess I should lead onto the amount of... ahem... 'attention' Cuban men like to pay to the opposite sex. It was quite funny actually, all the clicking and kissing noises, I didn't really find it disrespectful or insulting, I mean it's a way of life, the Cuban women don't seem to be offended so why should anyone else, and if you are then get over yourself! :)

We hired a shared taxi for our ride to Vinaless - it was a Chevy!! So excited! (Shared Taxi = all the old Chevys act as mini buses picking up people going in the same direction). Vinales was beautifulll, big open colourful streets with giant craste like hills in the background. The casa we stayed at fed us lobster on the first night FML. It was so good! Again, wandered about the streets, bumped into this older guy and he showed us his tobacco leaf farm (if that's what you call it) and even rolled us up a cigar right there and then for us! Quite cool! Also went for a bike ride around the Valleys - that was pretty epic, especially since I was able to play around with my SICK Gopro! Did I mention that my amazing friends got me a Gopro?? :D
On one of the nights there they had a dance/music/salsa night in the plaza where we bumped into one of the guys from Havana. At one point we had about three old men gyrating in front of us - god I hope they were drunk. I even got to try out some salsa dancing, apparently I move like a Cubano - high five to me!
We also went on a little trek with the tobacco guy - at one point I heard the sound of a chainsaw - doesn't bring up good thoughts when you're in the middle of nowhere! The guy also took us to meet his family afterwards, which was really nice, it wasn't even one of those 'let me do this for a tip' things!

The epic bike ride sesh in Vinales

We then went onto Trinidad and met this fascinating guy called Javier, travelling for what I'm guessing is around 40 years now! Had some lovely words of advice for me.
It's so interesting how each place I went to in Cuba was completely different to the last!
Trinidad - the place where I discovered Guava cake and ice cream (yes you heard right girls)!
We walked around the cobble stoned streets of this sleepy little town with bright, colourful houses and then ventured further out the touristy area and found perhaps the 'real' Trinidad, an even sleepier place, so tranquil and authentic compared to the shiny clean hub we were staying in.
Visited Playa Ancon, played around with the Gopro again and tried to do some Baywatch type action shots LOL - happy to say that those videos (of me acting like a drowning duck!) won't be surfacing.
Watched some salsa and afro-Cuban performers on the famous 'Musical' stairs. We even got to go to a discotheque in a cave called Disco Ayala (after ALOT of rum)! Wasn't too impressed with the cave, but it was an interesting night... got to salsa again! Nice to know that rum doesn't give me a hangover! :D
Also visited Parque El Cubano, a national park with Javira waterfalls, we got there late afternoon and my friend decided to wait for me at the entrance and not partake in this little trek, boy did I get paranoid! As it was late afternoon there wasn't many people around so walking through a forest type area doesn't really instil happy thoughts - chainsaw massacre part II! But it did make me do a 6 km roundtrip in about an hour!
Also did a 5 km walk (on another day) to La Boca - a quiet fishing village - a pretty active week for me hey!

Trinidad

Disco Ayala

Onto Santa Clara next or should I say Che province! Walked around pretty much the whole of the town, saw the monuments, had a very young and trendy vibe to it!
A funny story - so we'd got off the bus and had all these people hassling us to stay at their casas (already had an address to go to) and this one guy kept shoving his card in my face and being very annoying, ended up being rude to him. So we arrive at our casa and the guys occupied so he calls round all his friends to find somewhere for us. Finally found somewhere and got taken there, the woman was lovely and we headed out to go explore, lo and behold who do we bump into at the door - Marco the annoying guy from the bus station, the woman's husband - the looks on our faces!! It was all good though and we just laughed about it, him more than us cos we ended up paying more than what he was offering!!!

Touring a Teatro in Santa Clara

Last night in Che town was so nice! Just happened upon a bar in the square and saw these old guys setting up, turned out to be one of my favourite evenings! They started playing their salsa music, so small and so cute on their instruments! People were getting up to dance all over the place, strangers were grabbing eachother, even people dancing by themselves cos that's what the music did to them! Amazing.

Back in La Habana, we stayed at another hostel - with a woman named Mirella, lovely lovely woman. Visited Playa Guanabo just outside the city - just getting on the bus was a chore in itself!! Everyone shoving and pushing - bladdy hell!
Also went back to our 10 CUP mojito place - was a fun couple of nights! Paid a visit to the famous Jazz bar, paying 10 CUC!! Was not happy when they weren't actually playing jazz that night?!

So that is basically my two weeks in Cuba, I know I've most probably missed a whole bunch of stuff out, but it's late and I need to make my early bus to Holbox Island tomorrow.

I have to say though, no internet or contact with anyone for two weeks was quite nice, how backpacking is supposed to be I guess. Interesting to think I'll have a different experience to those who have gone before me, what with all the forms of communication now available. Maybe I should just 'accidentally' lose my phone and laptop..... JOKE. I wouldn't do that to you guys.

What am I doing?!

Leaving my family at departures yesterday, with tears in my eyes, I kept saying to myself to walk back, stepping onto the plane I thought I can still go back.. but I sat my arse down and just looked depressingly out the window LOL.

I'm now in Mexico!!

I don't think everything registered until I had got off the bus in downtown Cancun spending agesss to find my hostel in this heat with my bloody backpack - Did it gain a few kg while in transit or something?!?!

Finally got here and what comes to my attention... I had booked my bed for the following night as I automatically assumed I would be landing the next day and not the same damn day - oh how I hate time difference! After messaging my friend of this mistake she then kindly reminded me that my flight to Cuba was now not the next day... argghhh!! Can I call this a rookie mistake or just pure stupidness?? CHECK, CHECK, and CHECK AGAIN. But to be fair my initial flight was booked a while ago...

Me on the bus.

So, since I arrived the wrong day, only the 16 bed mixed dorm was available... it was fun getting woken up by the guy behind me being sick..!

The hostel had dinner and breakfast included, went to wait for dinner and they decided to give everyone tequila shots... wahhh! Empty. stomach. needs. filling. Took that and probably wasn't a good idea that I had a margarita as well. Dinner was appalling and so I headed out to the Mercado right outside.... the same one my friends and I visited on our last night on holiday last year!! Jealous much guys?? Haha.

I could live off these!

After talking to a few other travellers and walking about I felt better about being here. The amount of kind words and advice I've received from people back home have helped so much in taking this step.

My last week was kind of a blur, obviously I had to be rushing about all the way up until a few hours before my 5am departure from home, typical me! Let's hope my travels will teach me something about time management!

Wednesday night I helped out at my friends' 1st year anniversary of Food and Lycra and they secretly planned a section for me!! My amazing friends got me a GoPro and a scrapbook of photos and messages - I haven't ever been made to feel as special as I have felt these past couple of weeks. I should leave more often!

I should also have a special shout-out to one of my best friends Sammy... you made me cry (again)! :))) Your letter was so sweet and brought back so many memories. xxx

Right! Time for me to go get lost!

End of an Era... I can call it that right?

One week left until I’m out of here!! I can't believe it’s nearly here, I remember booking my one way ticket to Cancun 6 months ago thinking I’ve got all this time to a) learn Spanish, b) become a confident swimmer and c) be done with my research…. I can say I’ve done abooutt half of c).... hmm tell a lie, make that a quarter!

Ah well, it’s all part of the adventure I guess!

I’ve finished at work now and I’ll admit it, I’m kinda scared. I’ve quit my job to go travelling, I’ve left the security of a steady income and the comfortable office life I’ve relied on for the past four years to do something I’ve wanted to do for the longest time. Funny, telling people you’re going travelling by yourself, as a solo female, I’ve not had the best of reactions…

Everytime I think that I’m making the wrong decision, I just think back to how I’ve felt this past year, feeling like I was stuck in a rut, doing the same thing and seeing the same people over and over again, telling myself that 2014 was the year I was going to change my life and do something that I was going to regret not doing come ten years time. I feel like I’m forcing myself to do this and honestly…. I don’t even know if I’m going to enjoy it. But I won’t know until I do it.

I'd like to say a big thank you to the people who made my last day/week at work so special, I can't believe how enormously spoilt I was. Gorgeous and thoughtful presents as well as some 'special' memories made...! :)

How time flies...

Wow, looking at the posts below... I can't believe this was nearly five years ago! 21 years young, didn't know much about life, so bloody naive *sigh!*

I reckon I've changed quite a bit well maybe the hoodness still sticks with me haha, but I'm ready to pack it all in and roam about for a bit.

Five years, hey.... it really does fly.

Part 3 - The Religious Tingzzz!!

The day after trekking was the Tij Festival where only woman can celebrate it. It is a day where woman and girls fast from 12am to sunset for their husbands to have long and healthy lives. I tried it, yes, but it was harrd work especially in this heat!!! I bought a nice red and beige Kurta (Salwar Kameeze or suit) and wore tikka (a dot of red paint on my forehead!) then we went with other households to a temple in Lubhoo where it was packed with woman from all over the area. Since my "Mum" was still in her year of morning for her father-in-law, he was not allowed to enter the Temple so I went in with my "Sister". I went round while she touched each ornament and put even more Tikka on her head while saying prayers. We then entered this one building where only woman were allowed in it, even though there were men surrounding the outsides, peeking in.... :s.
Once inside, there was loud religious/Nepali music being played and there were females sitting all around except for the middle where you had them DANCING!! Yes, dancing, and, yes, I was made to dance, in front of a couple hundred Nepali's, including the men outside! It was all of us female volunteers and it wasn't any kind of Westernised dancing, no no, I was TRYING to do the more traditional way everyone else was, yes, cringe. Anyways, the day ended and I got to eat WHOLE lot at sunrise!! Only then I found out that my "Mum and Sister" only ate some fruit and sugared water and were going to be fasting AGAINthe next day, boyyyyy, I was not up for that!
Oh yeah, one of my volunteer friends - Jamie - he lives with a house full of woman so he decided to fast with them, hahahah, it was so cute!

We found out that us volunteers are extremely lucky because we came at a time when all the festivals are happening - Tij, Dshain, Krishnas birth, as well as it being Monsoon season, resulting in a whole lot of days off!!!! Speaking of Dshain, we get 7 full days off -so exciteddd!!!!

So a couple of weeks ago my monthly cycle had to unfortunately play havoc with me, kmt, I came on... This meant that I couldn't enter the kitchen because then I would make the food and water impure..... :| so I had to eat my meals at the doorway.... also, I couldn't touch the well outside to get water, because I would them make the whole well impure!! Great, when it turned out that my "Mum" was on at the same time, leaving us with my "Sister" to help us out (how -when she's at school most of the time!!), oh yeah, another thing, no male member of the family can touch us, hence the reason why my "Sister" can only help us. It wasn't too bad, cos I had my "Mum" to eat with, if she wasn't there, you better believe I would've gone straight to my room!!

Part 2 - HOTEL IN THE CLOUDS!!

OKAY!! So I haven't even mentioned my trekking experience from like two weeks ago!!! We started our journey at like 7am cos if we'd started it later it would've been DAMNNN hot going up the mountain!! Boyyyy, do I wish we'd had some warning as to what was coming, actually, maybe not cos then we would've chickened out!! Anywayzzzz, we were basically going uphill, like throughout!! I tell you, my thighs were burning - I best have got some toning done!! So, it was kind of ok going up, apparently due to the friction of our footwear paired with going uphill. The guy leading us kept on telling us "15 minutes, 15 minutes!" Believeeeeee he was saying that every half hour - kmttt!!!! Finallyyy, we get near the top about 2 n half hours later!!!! and the guy was like "There's a hotel on top where you can get french fries" - we were like "yea, yea, WHATever!!!" and what's on top??? A DAMN HOTEL!!!!??!?!!!! It was absolutely gobsmacking, We got onto the balcony of the hotel and I was literally speechless! The views were amazing, you could see the whole of Kathmandu Valley, and all the houses looked so miniature!!! The clouds were actually eye level with us, like something out of a film - you felt like you were in the clouds!! We stayed there for abit and yes - we got our french fries, hahaha!!!!
Coming down was TOTALLY different story, the friction with our footwear was no. longer.there. People were slipping left, right and centre!! And who got the brunt of it- yes - me. Cos of my crappy trainers I was landing on my arse a good 7 or 8 times, now, the first few times were hilarious, but after a while, nope, nope, nope, my arse (and my spine) weren't feeling it anymore. I was sooooo pissed off, one of the helpers had to actually help me down, step by step, like I was an Old Age Pensioner- kmtttt!! What made it worst was that we were going down little pathways and literally on the edge, so it was easy to lose your footing, had you not been looking where you were going!! All in all it was a wicked experience and I'm really happy I did it (and that we weren't prepared beforehand!) - but would I do it again - no way in Hell.

Part 1........

Soooooooo, yes Iknow it hasbeen a while since I posted....apologies!!

I think us volunteers have kinda morphed our mindsets to those who actually live here - Haha!
Take for example my friend Meena, everywhere we go now, she asks the price of something and straaight away she says "I'll give you 200 rupees!", she doesn';t even listen to the asking price, she goes in head-on! Funny shit! Even trying it in the village when everyone knows you DON'T haggle in villages!! Shame on you Meena!

A couple of weeks ago it was Father's Day here in Nepal, and I was rattling my brain thinkin about what to get for my host dad, turns out, a few sweets is appropriate enough, so I bought a couple of "expensive" bars of chocolate, and then come night time, when he got home from work, my "mum" made me actually "present" the sweets to him, kinda funny, kinda awkward... :s, it was a really cultural thing, then they had some indian sweets and we had to feed him!!

Have I told you that my "shower" consists of a bucket in the toilet...!!! Yes, that it what I have to use everyday, my "mum" gets me a big bucket of water from the well each day and I have to wash myself next to the squat toilet....how nice. I literally have to block my nose and breathe through my mouth, in fear of actually gagging! But I'm used to it now, what I'm still NOT used to is the freezing cold water flowing down my back, you'd think because of the boiling hot weather it'd be fine, but nooooooo, still freezing. Haha, funny story, the other day I was taking my "shower" and realised there was one of those fast, jumping spiders right above my head, yeaaa not nice, so my "mum" hears me screaming , lol, and I run out in my towel and all she does is swipe it into the water and it falls down the drain, believe she told my whole family and they were laughin about it the whole night!

The other day my "mum and sister" took my to get some red bangles for the coming festival, which was nice of them, after I found out that if people see a woman wearing red bangles then it means she is married, I guess it's a good thing considering I really don't want any Nepali guys approaching me anyways..... :D Then my sister took me to visit her school, which was really interesting because she goes to a private school, and I've seen what a government school looks like, and it is soo different! My sister has better, cleaner facilities, whereas the school is made out of clay, with everything a mess, also due to an earthquake which happened in 1989. Back to my sisters school, she showed me her class.... those kids are PACKED in. There's about 50 kids in each class, boyyyyy, and how they are all smart, I have no idea! Back in England a class of that size would run riot!! Also, because she has her SLC's (equivalent to GCSE's) coming up, she has to start school at 6am Sunday to Friday and finishes 6pm, are you maddd!??? It's unbelievable, and people round here go bed late, like 11pm/12am, so she and other kids like her only usually get about 4/5 hours sleep! Wow!! I NEED my 8 hours for sureee!! But nowadays it's more like 10 hours cos of all the work we do!!

Run out of time, have sooo much more to write about, will try tomorrow morning!!

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