We were up this morning at 5:00am and clicking MX boots clasp closed and pulling on our still salty and crispy riding gear. Today was just about ditching the panniers, tank bags, and other gear and just riding the bikes to somewhere new. Let’s face it, it’s just too easy to forget how much fun riding a bike can be, if you’re loaded down and basically just moving house every…

We’d planned on getting up early and photographing the sunrise, but to be honest I just couldn’t. I might be getting old, but there was just no way I could get my sorry and tired arse out of bed by 5:30am. At 6:30 we did manage to climb out onto our private balcony and started clicking the shutters on our sexy Fujifilm X-T2 cameras in the hopes of capturing a…

We hit the snooze button on Lisa’s iPhone 3 times before finally hauling our arses out of bed at 6:45am. My MX boots were still wet from yesterdays sweaty ride. Outside, the streets were already busy as I walked down the block to collect the bikes. My squeaking MX boots did little to add to my attempts to be inconspicuous. I’d rolled both bike up to the junction and by…

We’d planned on setting out early but there were a few jobs to get to first, which meant finding the offices for the national telecom company of Cuba, so we could buy an internet access card. We’d managed to buy one from a street vendor yesterday and I’d picked up some bad news. A scary two-lined email from my mum, which just read “please see Facebook, I’ve had an accident…

Wow I slept well!We were up and out the door of the Casa de particular by 7:00am. We’d spotted a great little café last night. The doors of the café were open on both sides. Inside it looked spartan and derelict in that special Cuban kind of way. Sat at the worn, once red, curved café bar we ordered two coffee’s. Yep, “dos café’s por favour”. That’s all we said,…

Sometimes even the smallest gestures of kindness are the ones that are important! That was the thought that ran through my head as I pulled on my dry riding gear, that had been taken and hung up last night by our host’s. Up on the flat roof I scanned the skyline for rain clouds and breathed in a new day. Past the metal security roof gate, the family sipped on…

What a sodding long, weird, soaked to the skin day.We’d left Vinlaes at a reasonably early hour this morning and for an hour cruised the twisty mountain roads before joining the main National highway. We’d wrestled over which roads to take in order to take us south west, but in the end conceded that with only a week left on Cuba, we needed to use the main road to get…

Sometimes it’s just great to pull off the panniers and bags and go for a ride.I’d left Lisa sleeping this morning, grabbed my X-T2 and headed up into the hills over looking Vinales Valley with it’s spectacular landscape dotted by dome limestone outcrops (mogotes). The light spit of rain lasted for just seconds but added a glint to the jungle-covered hills surrounding the town. Before sunrise I’d found a spot,…

The bags and panniers slammed into my thighs and crashed into the walls as I bumped and wobbled my down the narrow stairway to the front door of the hostel. I’d already collected the bikes from the car park 6 blocks away and navigated my back without hassle, to park them up outside. It was 8am and loading the bikes was already drawing a crowd of excited but polite onlookers,…

The last few days have been a blur of photography, delicious tiny cups of sweet dark coffee, toe-tapping Cuban music and great food.We’ve been up early each day, with the camera lenses clicking from the moment we step outside onto the streets. I love that fact that Lisa’s snap happy again. Lisa’s taken more photos and had more fun with her Fuji X-T2, than she’s taken and had in years.…