2009.11.25 Tough camping in Hanalei, Kauai, Hi

Kauai is a very small island, driving around the island would take two hours, but it's really incredible how can this tiny island have so much different climates. It is racing with one Indian village to be the wettest place in the world having dry canyons with endemic flora, including cactuses.

Mission - Push your limits.

Our preparation for the island was not the best, we had only two small backpacks with a tent, including two blankets, one sleeping bag sheet and no sleeping bags and matrace. Having these things we decided to go for two day hiking in Hanalei with overnighting there with couple of banana, four bagels and some energy bars.

Kalalau trail is counted as one of the hardest trails in the US, and it takes five days to do the whole trail. But we decided to do the first part of it, which was about 3miles and then to go to Hanakapai waterfalls. On the way to the waterfalls we had to cross Hanakapai river several times and on one of them I fell into the river, the stones were too slipery. Luckily I had my jogging shorts, which made me pretty delicious or onolicius for all kind of flies and moscitoes, so at the end of our hiking I looked terrible.

Anyway while getting to the waterfalls, we already knew that we are not gonna make it back, so on the first nice place we set up our tent and fire to make dry all my staff.

In Hawaii and in Cuba the sun sets very quick, about 5:30pm the sun is still high above the horizont, but at 6:00pm it is already dark outside. So after a while of sitting near our camp fire and having nothing else to do, we went to sleep at 7:00pm, and soon it started to rain.

At 1:00am Daniel woke me up asking me shutdown my cellphone. For a while we watched how storm was lightening all above us and then listened how it was crashing everything. Except the time then storm was crashing we could listen how wind was playing with leaves, but it always seemed us like there was someone walking around our tent. And since it was still raining we had no chance to look out in that absolute darkness.

At 3:00am we woke up because of cold. There was huge amount of water floating under our tent and taking all our body heat away. There was no way to lay down anymore, at least for me. So I got up and sitted on our backpack, the only place where I could still keep warm, and with passion waited three more hours until the sunrise, still sitting and almost falling asleep. These three hours seemed to me endless.

Quiete nice experience was for us to watch sunrise in the mountain between trees. At first I could see only black leaves on white sky background. Slowly I could differ green color of leaves from black and white background. Then I could see the color of my red top and then all other colors including blue, which was the last one.

As soon as it was light enough we started our 8mile hiking back to Keena beach.

Later on we've learnt that Hanalei was cut off from the rest of the island that night because of storm; the bridge which connects it to the rest of island was under the water.

Egi
25NOV2009
Finished on the airplane from Honolulu to Seoul

2009.11.19 Arriving to Hanalei, Kaua'i, HI

After arriving to Kaua'i island, we took the bus all way to the north, to Hanalei. Having no ideas what to do, we took a camping place there. First night we had a storm all night and I could not sleep very well. In the morning suddenly Daniel came to me with enormous joy, saying that we are going to have a breakfast with a very special family.

The Nelsons family has now very special place in my heart. While being there, I have opened a lot of things in my soul, I would never guess. It's hard to say right now how this meeting was meant for us, but definetely would like to keep these very meaningful words from that old lady, who was really kind to us to share her life wise.

Egi
19NOV2009

Finished in the aircraft flying from Lihue to Hilo

2009.11.16 Crash course of Panama

As we have to wait 4 hours in Panama airport, for our connection to Houston, we decided to try our chance to get out the airport. The lady in passport control, said that Daniel does not need a visa, as she saw my passport she looked at us again and put a stamp on my passport and sent us to buy a tourist visa. So we were out having the chance to see the city and the famous channel of Panama.

Being outside, we took the first opportunity to take taxi, who would drive us for sightseeing. By the way, our driver was really nice, all the way he explained us a small history of channel and also some information about the city. By his iniciative, we had a chance to see the ruins, where the city was found couple of hudreds years ago. There was a celebration of their independence exactly that day, and we got stuck in traffic jam because of parade, exactly after that, when our driver said us, that there is no traffic jam there.

Guess there is no need to describe about the channel. But by driving in the city, I was really surprised that the city is really modern, our driver said that there are 84 banks in the city. It can give us a lot of information about the capital going through this channel. Also it was written that ships should make reservation one year in advance, which is really unbelievable. No doubt in these conditions, the administration of Panama channel can dictate easily their own rules.

So happily having a nice tour of the channel and the city, we went to the airport, looking forward for new opportunities to visit the city again.

Egi
16NOV2009

Finished in the Camp, Waimea Canyon, HI

2009.11.14 Asta la vista y viva Cuba libre!!!

Last three days we spent in Havana, relaxing and doing more turistic staff than before, and actually we liked it a lot. Daniel was really happy that he could do beautiful pictures.
Finally we could manage to see our couchsurfers, two American girls living together in Havana. From them we learnt a lot of things.

Things are changing slowly. We did hear two different opinions. One was like the system will stay the same for longer, the other was that in the end of the next year the system will change completely. But for the moment, a doctor is paid about 20 CUC (1CUC = 1.11USD) per month and a local beer costs 1 CUC. Although the state gives them 70 cigars, 6 pounds of sugar, 4 pounds of rice and almost one glass of oil per month per person. I have no idea how they eat all these sugar. As I heard, they do consume all of it.

Cuba has two different economics set up. One is for local people, paid in local pesos, called peso nacional, and the other is for tourists, paid in pesos convertible, CUC, which is 24 times worth than nacional peso. As it was said, Raul Castro wants to unite them into one currency. Definetely looking forward to it.

For the moment I'll say Asta la vista to this (post-) communist country, which is slowly changing into capitalist one, no matter if Fidel Castro wants it or not.

Hasta siempre comandante Che guevara.

Egi
14NOV2009

Finished on the top of Sleeping Giant, Kauai, Hawaii.

2009.11.11 Crazy trip to Cayo Jutias

Upon our agreement with two German backpackers we took a taxi to visit Cayo Jutias island 60 km from Vinales to enjoy the beach in Gulf of Mexico.
In a few points the whole day was like this:

• Our companions first decided not to go, when they saw cloudy sky. Soon they changed their mind.
• Our car was really old, so while going up the hill I was not sure if it would manage it. And while going down the hill the driver was totally turning off the motor and as soon as it went down, the driver turned the motor on.
• Our driver brought us to the place in front of Cayo Jutias where as he said, it has the same water. Soon we found out colonies of small crabs, already half-erosed parts of some ships, forgotten and no more populated coastal shore with a ruined building, tricky watter full of small unknown microorganizmas, a tiny sandy place surrounded by thornies, and more colonies of small crabs. We decided not to stay there at all.
• After an hour of looking for some vehicle going to the island, we decided to visit a Cuban family to have a cup of coffee and wait two more hours for our driver to come and pick up us.
• Luckily exactly the same time our driver showed up and happily we drove to Cayo Jutias.
• We have already spent two hours enjoying normal beach, wheb huge amounts of grey clouds came and we decided to go back to Vinales before ot starts to rain.
• As we went forward everything began to disappear in the fog and only high palm trees were rising up this grey mass. Dark rain clouds have already been reaching us while we were leaving the island. Soon it started to rain cats and dogs as much as we were moving forward.
• Suddenly our old Russian car died in the middle of storm. Our driver tried to start the car with no success. After a while finally the motor was started and we continued our road. Our happiness did not last too much, in next few minutes the car died again and this time it was seriuos. The driver got totally wet in the rain while trying to fix the car.
• Half an hour later, when we already began to feel unhelpless, the car started and we slowly took our road to Vinales.

11NOV2009
Egi

2009.11.11 Vinales

Vinales has totally different atmosphere than other places in Cuba. The weather is more fresher here. Unusual shaped hills and rocks full of tall palm trees played with my mind.


The next day after arriving Vinales we took tourist hop-on hop-off bus around the region. Taking a boat inside Indio cave was one of the most exciting things. In a distance of two kilometers there was a disco inside another small cave, which would be very interesting to go there.


Experiencing the whole panorama of the region from one the hotels was also nice. Totally green hills and rocks were like put one by one randomly, it looked like a child was playing with sand and put these hills here and there.


Far far away totally dark rain clouds began to cover skysurface in the horizont and the wind was bringing them to our direction. In an hour everything dived into a darkness and it started to rain. We took the way to our place to have dinner, accompanied with an Australian couple who agreed to host us in Sydney, great job!


Egi
11NOV2009

2009.11.07 Trinidad

After checking plenty of casa particulars in Trinidad we found a nice one with cute garden inside it. Now I can say, that it was the best casa, ever we stayed for these two weeks.

The historical part of the city was not so interesting, at least for me. While looking for a place to overnight there, we have already walked in almost all interesting parts. Although it is under UNESCO protection. And it has quiet rich history since its foundation.

In the evening, after long tiring day, we opened a bottle of Havana Club and we asked our guy in casa particular to find for us a cigar. We ended up with a pleasant evening with the architect, teacher and dentist discussing the past and the present of the country.

One funny thing was that in the middle our conversation, our girls from London showed up, unbelievably we have accommodated in the same casa particular.

Whole next day we spent on the beach where we met our Japanese friends from Abel's casa in Havana. Cuba is small.



Egi
07NOV2009

2009.11.03 Going to Trinidad

Hitchhiking in Cienfuegos motivated us to do the same from Cienfuegos to Trinidad, which meant for us almost one and half hour of walking under burning sun from the downtown Cienfuegos to the place, where we could hitchhike. After another half an hour of nothing I began to reevaluate our plans.

Actually in Cuba almost in every intercity bus stop there is a person in yellowish costume who stops a car or a truck. We asked for a help from one of these officials, an old man. And finally we were in Russian GAZ, the driver later dropped us in crossroad where a plenty of people were already waiting for any car going to Trinidad.

Two girls from England stopped to pick up us. They took an old nice and big cabriolet with driver in Havana, and were driving all the way from Havana more than 3 hours under sun, totally wasted.

At the end, we can check that we did hitchhiking in Cuba, and it was different experience and gave us a chance to learn more about the life of local people.


Egi
03NOV2009

2009.11.02 Cienfuegos

Arriving to Cienfuegos by bus gave us really good chance to see the countryside Cuba. Palm trees, banana trees, sugar plantations, tobacco plantations, old cars and horse carriages, local people hitchhiking along the road, small single floor houses...

The city itself is a small provincial town. Narrow streets with parked cars are the first impression from the city. You can see a lot of local people going somewhere and only two tourists, actually us, lost in a new unexplored town. The one thing which was really pleasant, was that people do not disturb you by offering you cigars, taxi services and so on.

It was really nice experience to meet a local family and to have a conversation with them. Finally I had a chance to taste yuka, which was really similar to potato by taste, and a rum offered from local people.
And it was my fault to tell them that I don't know to sing and play some instrument, but I do like dancing. They turn on the music wanted us to dance with them :-).
Unfortunately we could not manage to see them again in Malecon. Malecon was really interesting. It was full of teenagers under age 18, I guess it was a meet place for all teenagers in Cienfuegos.

The next day we went to Rancho Luna beach. Because of low season the beach was not so crowded, actually it was really good for us, as we enjoyed it a lot. Again there we had a chance to talk to local people, and as usual they were really hospitable.

From the beach to the city we tried to hitchhike and on our first try we got a 56 years old American car with Japan motor. The Cuban driver was very nice to us and even brought us to our casa particular.
 

Egi
02NOV2009

2009.10.31 Havana

The city has its own charm: Old Spanish colonial style architecture and kommunizm ideology posters everywhere. Though, people are already get used to tourists and the capital what they can get from tourists. On every step you can meet someone who will try to sell you cigars.

No doubt, that in case when Cuban economy become open for "capitalist" world, then all reality prices will increase a lot.

Anyway, while walking along the Prado street you can see plenty of old colonial style buildings. But unfortunately you can also see a lot of totally ruined and empty buildings with trees grown inside.

Oh yeah, whole Cuba is full of old American, Russian, European and Japanese cars. It's hard to imagine Moskvich and an American car from 70s parking side by side. And it's really amazing that these cars are still drivable.

Unforgetable experience was walking alonside the coast Old Havana. Really hot sun is shining and the weather is too humid, so I was thinking about taking a shower 3 times a day. At six o'clock in the morning it's still dark outside, but half an hour later the sun is so high, so it's already burning.

I had interesting moments while buying souveniers. There are a lot of cute and original things with really nice prices. Surely I would love to come here for a long vacation and buy all these things as much as possible. But for now, we have to think about what to carry with us next four months.

To be continued ...


Egi
31OCT2009

Pripravy na cestu, fast week

Pondelok 12.10.2009:

Moj pas je v Londonu na NZ Immigration

Utorok 13.10.2009:

Moj pas dorazil do Phy a je odeslany do Viedni

Streda 14.10.2009:

Moj pas dorazil do Viedni na AU Embassy

Kubanska viza je hotova

O viza do Korei je pozadano

Stvrtok 15.10.2009:

AU viza je hotova, moj pas vyzdvihnuty

vecer surpriz parti pre moju lasonku

Patok 16.10.2009:

Ockovanie na cestu je skoro hotovo

moj pas dorazil do Prahy