We were up at 6:30am and ready for breakfast at 7am and checked out and waiting for our transfer to Maria La Gorda at 8am. The driver was about 10minutes late, but as we had a private van it was no problem. The journey to Pinar del Rio was on a 3 lane highway that is in desperate need of resurfacing. The traffic was very light and included bikes and horse and carts. At one point we saw some workers asleep next to their cart with their rice out to dry. The road past Pinar del Rio was only two lane and in a much worse state of repair in places. The whole journey took around 5 hours and we arrived around 1pm. We checked in, had lunch surrounded by Cats and booked in for a boat trip to snorkel. Catriona had a game of chess with Megan's suitcase and took a photo of it relaxing on a sun lounge. (This is because after borrowing her larger suitcase it went missing for a month on the way home from Canada and we found it had been to Cuba) At 3pm we met at the dive shop then set out on the boat. The water was beautiful and clear however the coral seemed to be dead. We did manage to see quite a few colourful fish including a lion fish.
We had afternoon drinks on John and Lorna's balcony, watching the sun go down. We enjoyed the cool sea breeze and the great views over the Caribbean sea. Dinner was at the buffet restaurant and was filling. After dinner The two of us walked out along the jetty, did a little salsa dancing as there was a band playing on the beach, and watched the stars in the clear night sky before retiring for the night.
The breakfast buffet started at 7:30am and we were there waiting for it to open along with the dive centre staff. After breakfast we updated our diaries and relaxed a little before heading out to snorkel off the beach. There were many different types of fish swimming around the concrete block jetty. Further out there were small groups of coral where we saw crown of thorns, puffer fish and many other large and small multicoloured fish. We took a break from swimming to use the internet and sent Megan an email from her suitcase and write a message to Chris on facebook. The connection was too slow to update the blog and 30minutes cost 3 CUCs. We ha another snorkel before lunch and it was chilly at times as some large clouds blocked the sun. We had lunch with Lorna and John and as we were finishing up Romey and his new group arrived. We met his new group, a Finish couple, a South African girl who lives in Brisbane, a Guy from London who went to the school John was first principal of and Naranee. When they finished their lunch Catriona took Naranee for a snorkel around the jetty. She walked along while Naranee first just put her face into the water and then eventually floated along. At 5pm we sat on Naranee's verandah drinking Havana Club and Tukola we eventually moved to John and Lorna's where we were joined by Romey and the rest of his new group.
We sat with Romey's group for dinner and met back at John and Lorna's after and continued drinking into the night. At one point we noticed there were cows on the beach. Lorna went a little too close to a cow and it's calf and was charged by the mother. The sky was very clear and from the jetty we could see thousands of stars.
No comments:
Post a Comment