Today we are due to fly home but we have a late flight home and are due to be picked up at 4pm so we still have time for a few more photos. Keith, brendan and myself head off around the streets around our hotel. We out there early in and around the small estates that live nearby. We get some more good shots but the funniest thing is that we come across a group of elderly ladies duringt heir morning exercise. There are a group in a small square of about 20 of them in a circle singing and doing gentle exercises. They see us and invite us in amongst their group to take their phots while they sing Guantanamera. They were great fun and even though they didn't speak a word of english they were very nice to us and told us their ages which all appeared to be in their 80's and 90's. It was a great laugh not sure I got any good photos but a good laugh.
That was the end of the photos for this trip, or so we thought. We headed off to the airport about 4.30pm for our flight at 8pm. We were all on board for about two hours, but I knew something was wrong because after an hour of loading passengers I noticed the buses had come back again. Right enough after two hours sitting on the plane we were unloaded. We later found out that the plane had been damaged when they rolled the stairs up to it. The pilot said it would be the following day as they needed to get an engineer from Paris to sort the problem out. Once off the plane and back in the terminal the fun started as we had to get our visas back, pick up our cases and we were taken to a hotel for the night. As it happened we had to stay over for two nights. But it did mean we were able to get back into Havana for an extra day of taking photos.
The trip was fantastic a brilliant place to go. I'm not sure I would bother going there as a sun holiday to spend all the time at the beaches. It's much better as a cultural holiday. What really made it though was the company, we had such great craic, there was always a good laugh and there was no absolutely rancor. Ramses was a great and a new friend to us all. He looked after us so well and joined in just like one of the gang. Any regrets, well a couple, I'm sorry I didn't get more great photos, but a holiday like this is a balance between times with friends and time taking your hobby too serious. I'm really sorry we didn't get to hear more music and go to a few clubs to hear Jazz and Cuban music. But it's always great to leave wanting more and a good excuse to come back.