Habana

Sarah Grace goes to sea
Chris Yerbury and Sophy White
Sun 22 Apr 2007 23:23
Sod,s law dictates that as soon as you post a blog about lack of wind it changes!! Sure enough as soon as I had typed the last blog around 06.00H the wind rose and we could now finish the trip to Habana under sail and switch the noisy old engine off. Our first trip out of the Marina was into the local village for some fresh veg & meat, if we could find any. Don't expect convetional shops outside the big cities we were told and sure enough the first place we found was a tiny kiosk selling only Tomatoes, Peppers and a few chillies. It was going to be a long shopping trip!! however it did cost us 10p in local money. Here you see all forms of transport and some you would never have dreamed of, taxi's can be anything from fairly modern cars/minibuses to pedal trishaws. A wander down to the local beach saw the usual family  groups swimming, chatting and of course going on, the ubiquitous Baseball game. It is literally played everywhere even on one of the fairly busy streets of Habana we witnessed a group of kids playing on a piece of ground about an eighth of a football pitch knocking the ball all over the surounding roads and chasing in amongst the traffic to catch it. We eventually found the beach hut that sells stuff but no kiss me quick hats though but we did get three pizzas and drinks for <45p. A trip to Habana was a real eye opener with a myriad of old colonial building, some of which are very ornate, also the people are amazingly friendly with the most amazing skin tones I have ever seen in one city, every tone from very black through to quite pale with everything in between. Tomorrow we are off by car to a reputedly very pretty region about 100miles away and if as even half as good as Habana it should be brilliant.