So much has been happening lately and I have so much to post about but haven't really had the time. Life is crazy sometimes! In January, my mom took me on a vacation (my first ever, really). We went to Cuba, I got to pick the place. We chose to go to Playa Ancon, a beach near Trinidad which is an old historical town. It's very different than Havana, much older and colonial looking. Also it was next to a huge mountain range where we could go hiking. Oh, and the beach we were on only had three resorts. It turned out to be the perfect place!
Thought I would share some pictures before I forget it even happened...
This is Trinidad, which was about 20 minutes away, so bright and colourful! It wasn't super hot while we were there, only about 26 degrees, but it was so sunny it was hard to see what I was taking pictures of! This was taken in the Plaza Mayor, the center of the historic part of the town.
School uniforms! All the kids had a day off school for a national holiday, and they were exploring the museums and historical sites in groups like this one.
We visited a lot of places: a music club, two different kinds of churches, a family's house that they open as a hostel or "casas particulares" (there are over 200 apparently), a pottery factory, the market, and of course a cigar shop.
Something really awesome and different about Trinidad is the pet birds outside of every building. (I didn't get a great picture of one, but they were everywhere). There are little cages hung outside every house and apparently they compete with them for money to see who has the best singer. They even train them by walking them around town to check out the competition and learn the songs. So neat and original!
Our tour guide was so sweet as well, we took three tours on our trip and the tour guides were amazing! It's nice to talk to people who are from the area about what life is like there. Everyone here speaks like 3 or 4 languages (French, English, Spanish, maybe Italian). We were with a lot of French-Canadian tourists the whole time. Didn't pick up any Spanish but I did get a French language refresher.
This is our beach.
The view from our hotel room, the mountains!
My favourite part of the trip was when we went up into the mountains for a hike. Again, our tour guide Alex was so funny, making bird calls and pointing out every little thing and taking pictures with our cameras. It was neat to see how people live in the mountains, and I was surprised to see electricity all the way up the mountain!
The tallest waterfall in Topes de Collantes (top of the mountain). Niagara Falls is "amazing" but it doesn't compare to be able to see a waterfall up close, and walk up to it and touch it, stand under it. It was really shallow, so no swimming.
But we did get to swim with a tiny little waterfall in some ice cold water (it was winter there). It was just like swimming in a lake though.
A cave to explore.
Alex explaining bamboo growth.
Air plants! These things were growing everywhere, even in the power lines.
We ate lunch on a farm at the end of our trail. It was such a great day. Weird to eat chicken when there are chickens walking around at your feet under the table!
On the last day of our trip, we went on a steam train ride. Less exciting, because there was no tour guide.
We stopped off in a little town with a market (sat down and ate some bananas) and a tower to climb. The view from a little bit up.
More of the view, you can see our steam train waiting in the distance!
Higher still...
It was super windy.
Back on the ground, a taxi. The tower can be seen in the background.
Last stop was another family farm and restaurant! This is the place to eat by the way, the food wasn't great at the resort, but eating at a family mansion restaurant is the best. My mom and one of the puppies we found.
This farm had like 6 little puppies, cats, a rabbit, chickens and baby chicks, and horses.
More puppies!
That's basically it! I hope to go on more vacations, this was so much fun. I don't know how to relax really, especially when I am in a new place, so I dragged my mom everywhere on our week-long trip...
So long, Cuba!