3 - 13 - 19  Traveled to Cuba for our third visit from February 26 to March 12 was truly fantastic and would have liked to stay longer.  Went to the eastern side and along the coast, which had a different feel from the west side that is more crowded with tourists from around the world.  Still, very few Americans are traveling to this island "where time has stood still" and do not know that they can freely travel there without doing an expensive tour or taking a cruise with a group of other tourists.  Cubans love Americans and when they asked where we were from, they were astonished to hear from USA and wanted to know why more Americans were not here.  Flew into Holguin, after taking a plane from NYC to Miami, then Miami to Holguin and takes longer to get to the eastern side, but well worth it.
A collective taxi met us at the airport and took us to Santiago de Cuba, which was Cuba's first capitol, is a port town on the coast with views of the ocean and steep hills to walk up.  Driving there was up the Sierra Maestra mountains, curvy roads and high up (6,476 ft.) with rainforest conditions, very interesting to see and cool.  It was a 5 hour ride to get to Casa Carballo on Hartman, where Mandy and his wife have a lovely Casa with tiled rooms, all separate bathroms on two floors and a lovely
terrace to have morning breakfast.  Both of them are doctors and she has been to the USA to work at a Bronx hospital. No need to worry about not speaking Spanish, since all children are taught English in school.
From the Malecon on the water we took a ferry with local Cubans to an Cayo Granma island that was one hour away with no cars and had 800 people living on it.  The ferry fee was $1.00 each way.  Next, we traveled by collective taxi (the former casa arranges the taxi pickup for you) to go to the furthest town on the eastern coast, Baracoa, very lovely town and lots of restaurants and town square.  We liked the Dorado restaurant, where dinner for two cost under $5.00.  Baracoa has a
nearby beach and at the end of it is a river, where you have to take a rowboat across it to go to the white sand beach and walk up a road to the highest point to see the Mirador, vista view.  We stayed at the Casa Colonial Isabel, lovely place, where Jose Rosello was very helpful, along with his Mom.  He arranged for a collective taxi to take us to the beach town of Guardalavca, a long ride of 5 hours to
get to Casa Marazul.  We had fresh shrimp dinner with yogurt natural at La Isbella's where the local Cubans would eat, all for less than $5.00 for two people.  In Cuba the resorts are all on one end and controlled by the government, not to overtake the coastal areas and away from the Cuban people to enjoy.  While there we visited the Museo Chorro de Maita where the Museum is built around the graves of people from the 16th century.  The Museo is situated on the hill of Yaguajay in Holguin Province.  It consists of the remains of an excavated indigenous Taino Indian Village and cemetery of 62 human skeletons.
Cuba is special, a fascinating cultural experience and the people are kind and love Americanos.  I look forward to visiting again, to see the Valley area and to mingle among the Cuban people who live a simple life that is not consumed with materialism.  Viva Cuba !