Cayo Levisa to Habana
After a morning of playing…
It was good bye beautiful Cayo Levisa
(we saw the christning and maiden voyage of their new ferry too)
We headed to Old Havana
After checking into our Casa (Juan y Margarita) – where we had a view of the main street of old Havana….
we headed out for dinner
and a little wander around town 🙂
Before hitting the sack 🙂
Vinales to Cayo Levisa
We were up! We had a yummy breakfast in our casa…
After a cold shower and no wifi…we were off on a tour around the tobacco fields…
First stop the massive prehistoric mural
Then through the mogotes (limestone pin cushion hills)
Across fun muddy paths and bridges
to get to the tobacco fields
(on advice from the kids, we declined sampling or purchasing the product)
a little cave exploring
back to our horse + buggy
through town
back to our comfy abode 🙂
What a fabulous morning!
then it was time to head to Palma Rubia
(check out the guys machete in the first pic!)
to catch our ferry for Cayo Levisa
where we checked into our room
relaxed on the beach
Then we saw the evening out with a little dinner and dancing 🙂
🙂
Good night 🙂
Varadero to Vinales
After saying goodbye to Nathan (we had organised his transfer to be in an old car and city tour of Old Havana on his way to the airport)
…and then waiting for our non-existing tranfer after a mixup…
we crammed into the old car of a friend of the receptionist (eek!)
and we were off! Headed to the hills so to speak 🙂
Look at the sign above this soccer field – socialismo o muerte (socialism or death!)
anyone want to buy some garlic or onions?
Then we left the coastal route and headed inland – with a break at Las Terrazas
Before heading along more country roads…
To reach Vinales 🙂 A huge thank you to Carlos our driver and his fabulous chariot 🙂
We’d made it…to our home for the night Casa Cristina y Abel
After a little break we headed out for a yummy dinner…
and found churros
before bed 🙂 Another day exploring 🙂
A day of more Chillaxing in Varadero
 
Merry Christmas
It started off with the Elf’s Christmas surprise…a whale in our lounge room!
Now today there was nothing to do but chillax and enjoy our holiday…
 
 
Merry Christmas to all!
A long long start
The plan was to be by the pool sipping cocktails by lunchtime…in the end we had a long start to our holiday.
Our timeline kept getting delayed 😦 ..but most importantly we made it 🙂
A few weeks out, our morning flight was rescheduled to be put back a couple of hours…
Poor Kaya got sick – and so it wad decided that he and Mike would be staying home 😦
We checked in on time.
One the day the flight was delayed a few hours…but it left 🙂
We filled out a billion forms…
went through immigration and waited 2 hours for our bags!!!
had an almost two hour drive to our hotel – but we made it time for the the Christmas Eve buffet.
Then poor Eli was up violently sick from about ~11pm – 2am 😦
(making it very difficult for Santa to visit)
It was quite a first day, but we made it – our adventure had started!!!
Now if only Santa can finds us…
Our Joseph
Look who has the starring role in the church Christmas pageant 🙂 Quite an honour!
This is the cool beard that mum bought that wasn’t too popular 😦
Eli did a great job supporting along with the other fourth graders 🙂
Hip Hop Nutcracker
Yup, just as crazy as it sounds 🙂
…but something for everyone.
A new experience for B.
Hip Hop for L.
Nutcracker for E.
The jury is still out for N?
But certainly fun to try 🙂
L’s first competitive basketball game
He loved it – he’s hooked! Go Celtics!
Eli and I did really well too. We won the 50-50 raffle 🙂
Overall quite a successful result!
Eli hanging out with her friend Ayla
This time Eli’s play date with Ayla was volunteering at the NJ Food Bank. They did a great job!
Wallamble 