Viñales to Havana

Alas, it was time to bid farewell to Viñales and make our way back to Havana.

We decided to take the "Coast" road (even though it didn't really run along the coast) and we made our way back through some spectacular scenery.

We were hoping to go to Las Terrazas, but as we hadn't really had accommodation sorted in Havana, and this coupled with what I thought was going to be a major hassle with the return of the rental car because of the keying incident that occurred on the 2nd day of the car rental, we thought it best to just keep on trucking through to Havana.

Whilst we had the car, we drove to a couple of Casa Particulars that were listed in The Rough Guide to Cuba on Neptuno Street. The first one we went to was full, but the one that was next door had availability and turned out to be absolutely fantastic. It was called "Casa Miriam y Sinai". Anyone looking for accommodation in Havana, I would heavily recommend staying here. Both Miriam and her daughter are absolutely lovely and run a fantastic establishment that is very traditionally colonial.

We dumped our stuff, and went to return the rental car. After a few nerve racking moments, it turns out they didn't really notice the incident as I was pretty meticulous at marking damage to the car when I took it, and pretty much every panel was marked with damage on the piece of paper, which I think helped. Either way, we were done with it and all was well with the world.

We then went for a final walk down Obispo and got caught in an absolutely torrential downpour. Complete and utter chaos. We just did what the locals did and found some cover and just stood and watched the storm. It must have lasted around half an hour, but it was great to just people watch anyway.

Back to find some internet time at the Parque Central Hotel and to print out our boarding passes for our next destination - Colombia! We're off to Cartagena tomorrow, hopefully to meet up with my old boss, Scott, and to check out the area. I'm sure it will certainly offer us a different experience than Cuba, but both Nikki and I are a little apprehensive about it, just because we are a little unsure of what we are in for. I'm sure it's going to be an experience, one way or the other!