Cuba beyond the hotels - 💌 SimplyCubaTours

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Subject: Cuba beyond the hotels - 💌 SimplyCubaTours

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Hola Friend,

How are you? I finally returned to Australia after 2 wonderful months of reconnecting with Yoanis and our service providers. I have to say the 2 months has gone waaaaaaay too fast!

It is fascinating the things you see and learn once you are out of the hotels and past the Havana city limits. As we always stay in casas to support the locals, we have had various delicacies for breakfast and in some instances dinner. Whilst I heard the feedback from some travelers that juice was not found in hotels, we had delicious fresh fruit juice each and every morning - from mango, papaya, star fruit, pineapple to guava and more. So good!

Enjoyed rice pudding, pancakes, cheese, ham, french toast, custard, yoghurt, bread and eggs cooked to your liking every morning. Each place is different, depending on what was available, but always delicious. Of course out of courtesy we always let the host know if we didn't want something in advance to make sure they didn't just waste good food for no reason.

The lunches and dinners were also amazing, although at times we were faced with the once extensive menu to be reduced to 3-6 staples, but the quality and flavors of those are delicious. I cannot say I can complain about any of our meals. What I love most about eating in Cuba is that I am constantly full as a goog, and I came home 5kgs lighter. BONUS! I put it down to the fact that everything is natural and organic.

Apart from the food, that I always looooooove... I also had great fun experiencing things like hearing from an old tobacco farm lady how to cultivate her cigars, and see her in action - she still loves a good cigar at 76. So sweet!

Checking out the coffee bushes, and taking coffee beans through the process of 'peeling', percolating and grinding them with traditional equipment. And not for the tourist sake, but because that is what our host at our casa has, and what typically people would have. I am very happy to have been able to bring some of that goodness home!

Learning all about cacao and preparing chocolate. It was rather fascinating to see the once white and soft cacao pulp go through fermentation, percolation and a press to be turned into chocolate. Those little drinking cocoa balls are just magical.

Ziplining over trees and lakes was exhilarating. Had a ball at the beach cooking fish on a camp 'oven' - oh so good. Snorkelling with seas tars (even if the footage made me feel like Celeste Barber), in a fish cave and the ocean was magical.

Spotted the world's smallest bird, the Bee Hummingbird close up and got to see hundreds of pink flamingos. They are just spectacular!

And the list goes on! It's just so much fun. Best part is that we do include the activities I mention on our itineraries. Because we want you to be able to experience what we experience and show you Cuba whilst we support the communities, with our presence but also by raising awareness of things like nature being preserved, birds being protected, life on the island.

I'll start putting pen to paper and start writing those blogs I was meant to along the way. It was just too much fun, and too little internet to have them done whilst on the road.