Somehow I was persuaded to set my alarm for 6am to watch the sail into port!  I’m not a morning person, so arriving on deck, wrapped up in a fleece, in the pitch black, let’s just say I was not a happy bunny!

Like someone flicked a switch, the sky cleared and we were treated to a magnificent sunrise

The sail in was beautiful, yes it was worth getting up for & we even got to watch the captain dock the ship, plus the atmosphere on deck was amazing, people encouraging others to the front, moving so others could get a better picture, sharing binoculars, not like the big ships where it’s every man for himself!

We’d had the dreaded norovirus on board and were boarded by a doctor before being cleared to go ashore, and everyone going ashore had their temperature taken by Cuban officials every time we went through the Customs building!

Formalities done, 4 of us headed out to hire a taxi, now where else in the world could you cruise in a 1934 Ford (with a Toyota engine) for £5 each?

Removing the roof involved screwdrivers and several of the drivers mates but was definitely worth it!

Lesson learned – make sure your driver speaks good English!  This guy had basic English & I’d very basic Spanish but we managed to see the sites and when I got home hubby was able to identify the plane in the schoolyard as a MIG6 

Cuba is full of monuments and we saw some of these

I like seeing life go on around them so didn’t edit the photos down

We saw the house Fidel Castro lived in

One of the key sites of the revolution with bullet holes in the walls

Weird & wonderful signs that I liked

And a modern shopping centre and hotel, the only hotel in Santiago de Cuba, they aren’t really geared up for tourists, though you can rent a room in someone’s house

Towards the end of our trip, the driver took us to buy some cigars from his friend, we foolishly thought we’d be going to a shop but ended up in a street with a guy with cigars in his rucksack, we declined to buy, and it turned out that we made the right decision not to buy here!

Our driver didn’t seem to happy with us not buying, so we asked to go back to the ship where we browsed the little market before heading out again