Out with the girls for the afternoon, let’s go to the beach!

The closest beach was 20 miles away so we needed a taxi and there was only one driver left at the port but we still managed to negotiate a deal.  Only a black lada car remained in the car park & I was a bit disappointed as we headed towards it, but the driver strolled on past and round the corner to a big yellow Cadillac!!!

It felt good to be out of the city and as we headed into the country the horses pulling the carts, which seem to be the main form of transport, looked much happier & healthier

It was a pretty, if eventful drive, we had a very near miss with another car, about an hour got us to the sea

I think the beach was called Siboney, it was very rocky & pebbles more than sand and was full of locals enjoying the weekend sun, four British Ladies were quite a novelty, especially as 3 of us were blond, I sat in the sea, surrounded by kids stroking my hair, my arms, my ‘blanco, blanco’ legs and laughing at my attempts at Spanish, though we did manage a bit of a conversation and my sparkly pink toenails were a hit with the girls!

We’d been warned to be careful with our sunglasses, jewellery & phones so we took turns to go in the water, sunbathed & shared ‘ola’s’ with the locals, after an hour or so we headed off to find the local restaurant we’d agreed to go to for drinks, as the owner had kindly taken our photos

Every good restaurant has a motorbike in it, right?

We couldn’t find the restaurant, but the chap came out of his house again & brought us through his kitchen and front room into a room with about 4 tables set up, choice of drinks was a beer, so 4 beers it was, they came from a fridge in the bedroom!

The owner thought we might be hungry and tried to tempt us with a lobster, but we’d a boat to catch

After trying to pay, which took a while as we thought we hadn’t paid enough & kept giving him more money, but really he was trying to tell us he’d no change, it was back to the taxi and back to Santiago de Cuba, to hopefully buy some cigars!

Now the driver had done good all afternoon so we felt comfortable as he pulled into a housing estate to meet his friend from the factory, as we waited, someone parked their horse

There was a bar round the corner where we could have had a beer, or a beer, but certainly no cocktails and I can’t remember why we didn’t go…

The cigars were duly bought, we’d no idea if they were good or not, but decided to trust the driver and a couple of days later when we discovered just how good they were I wanted to ask the captain to take us back!!!

Back to the boat, one of the girls noticed a wee cafe on a boat so we thought we’d check it out

There was a queue to get in, but the rope was opened to let the four of us in, the pina coladas were good and again we became the entertainment!

The dancing was good, the girls even helped our friend find her rhythm 

All in all a fantastic girls day out and we made it back to the ship with time to spare!