We take a red eye flight from L.A. to Florida and are greeted with a fantastic sunrise on the airplane as we travel. The Lord does wonderful work.

A nice view of some of the Miami skyline from the Miami cruise ship pier. We also see another cruise ship making it's way out of the port to sea. When we arrive, there are about 5 or so cruise ships all collecting passengers.

Miami might just be the largest cruise ship terminal in the world.

In the morning of our first full day, we arrive bright and early at the Port of Havanna. We are traveling with one of Adelina' friends, Jennifer, who has a cabin with a balcony. Walking out onto the balacony, we are presented with our first view of Havanna.

You can see that much of this port is old, and not well maintained. More difficult to see immediately below the picture is the receiving building that we'll exit the ship too. Still old, but it clearly has been painted and shows some signs of fixing up.

This picture has enough pixels to allow you to zoom in and see more detail if you like.

Here is another view of the Havanna port where our cruise ship docked, just right of the prior picture. Zoom in a little and you can see more detail on the condition of the port, which also gives you an idea of the condition of the city in general. Not well maintained.

There not being real, complete relations between the U.S. and Cuba, exiting the ship requires passing through Cuba passport control, having a Visa (arranged prior to departing the U.S.), having your picture taken and passport reviewed by Cuba immigration, etc.

Cuba shops, restaurants, etc., for the most part, will take U.S. money, but the best exchange is to change money at the cruise ship terminal itself. Cuba has taked their money, called CVC, at the same value and the U.S. dollar, so exhange calculations are easy. The exchange service (government controlled) at the terminal charges 7%.

Once we exit the terminal, we see the main stree with horse-drawn carriage rides/taxi. A not well maintained cathedral is across the street. More on that below.

Even without having been to Cuba, most U.S. people are aware that the vehicles used are a throw back to the 1950's. The Castro Revolution happened in 1959, and sales of U.S., and Europe, cars stopped at that time. I have found out though, that Cuba has been able to get parts for the vehicles that existed from the U.S. auto manufactures, via third-party companies that can ship to Cuba, such as Australia, thus keeping their vehicles running.

Here you can see examples of the cars, kept in mint ship, a diacotomy to the buildings that are in very poor shape. Most of this cars are taxi's, which, as you can imagine, need to be in reasonable shape for tourists to want to use. I'm sure that some tourist take these taxi's just to enjoy a ride on these old posse's.

Here we have a better view of the cathedrial that we saw above, as we exiting the cruise ship terminal/Cuba immigration center. The Spanish used Havanna as the main entry port for island exporation and main town in the area, in the 1700's, so it would be natural for a Catholic Church to be built at that time. Unfortunetly, it has not been well maintained, along with most of the buildings in the city.

This cathederal is named for Saint Francis of Assisi, a popular Saint in Catholic circles.

Father Junipero Sierra, a Franciscian priest from from Spain, was here in the early 1500's when he came to the new world. Here is a statue at the Cathedral, that commorates him and his work with the local inhabitants.

Father Junipero Sierra is well know in California. He was the main religious person on Hernan Cortez's missions of exploration and gold stealing in the new world. but also the Christianization of the local inhabitants.

From San Diego all the way up to San Francisico, Father Sierra built a chain of 21 adobe brick Catholic churches. All are still in service and a major topic of history lessons for California elementary school students. There is also a 5 fwy exit named Junipero Sierra (maybe more than one) in Southern California.

Adelina (on the right) and her friend Jennifer, pose with a bronze statue of Saint Francis of Assisi, in front of the Cathedral that bears his name in Havanna, just outside the cruise ship terminal exit.

While I mentioned earlier that the city of Havanna, as presented to us anyway, was dirty and delapitated, that is not to say that there aren't buildings and street areas that are OK. Unclear why the difference, but I suspect that local businesses are local people that have more inititive keep their local assets clean if they feel too. In communist areas, there is typically no extra (e.g. monitary) value in this, beyond pride. Differnt though if there are tourists comint through the area.

In the 1700's and 1800's, water was brought into the city from the local mountains via pipes that went under streets, and then fanned out to various city locations. People here are looking at one opening to an old water well, where local inhabitants of old that lived in city could fetch water.

Adelina, Jennifer, and myself happen on a very friendly police officer that spoke english. He gave us some friendly tidbits, like cheap places to buy cigars, and allow us to take a picture with him. Nice guy. Actually, the poeple of Havanna that we met were all nice people.

Havanna is setup we way many cities in Europe are setup, with large plaza's every so often. Here we come across one, just a few blocks from the cruise ship dock.

Here we visit a lovely and fairly clean plaza called Plaza Vieja, originally laied out in 1559.

Another angle and more details of Plaza Vieja, in Havanna.

Now here is something you don't see every day. It's a naked woman on a... rooster.

Now being that we're not in an organized tour group, we can't ask the obvious question. But we do check the internet when we get home. It is art by a famous Cuban artist Roberto Fabelo. Fabelo apparently likes art of nude women with birds.

No particular meaning is presumably established by this particular work, or why it's in the Plaza...

This street has, amonst other things, a little outdoor cafe. It is more indicative of the streets in Havanna, although they can be much worse. You can do a close up of this picture and see the upstairs areas are not well maintained.

Overall, even though the pictures thus far haven't really shown it out, the city is not that clean. So we decided to NOT have a meal in Havanna, even though trying local cuisine is always a part of travel. For Havanna, we made an exeption, although there were plenty of tourists that partaked.

Another city street in Havanna. Adelina is in the foreground, exploring the city.

The guys on bicycles on the left are actually taxi drivers. They'll pedal you around the city, as you wish. I didn't ask, but suspect that this mode of taxi is used by the locals. I have to believe that those cherry'ed up 1950 era vehicles we saw at the cruise ship exit were used predominetly by tourists.

Adelina posing with another local taxi variety. Probably tourists use these also. Very praticle it seems to me. These don't require people power, and they are small enought to get through the small old-style, streets of Havanna.

Adelina posing in another Havanna street. Notice in the distance that building that looks like the U.S. capital dome. There is a picture of it later. This building is well kept (and as you can see in the picture, under maintenance now), and looks very much like the U.S. captiol. Probably a coincidence...

Now here is another interesting picture. It is someone roasting a whole pig on the street. Don't see that every day in the States.

Adelina tells us that this is common in rual areas of the Phillipines, but in the Phillipines, they roast the entire pig (similar to the way it's being done here), underground. Here, they either don't do it underground, or have adapted a different style since you can't get underground on a city street.

We come to another plaza in Havanna. This is Plaza De La Catherdal. The Catherdal featured in this plaze is called Catedral de San Cristolbal, or the Cathedral of Saint Christopher. The plaza was founded in 1592.

At the Cathedral of Saint Christopher is a wonderful nativity scene on display. Was a pleasure seeing it and seeing the Lord's work in this, formally isolated, city.

As we enjoy exploring the city if Havanna, this scene approaches. These ladies, some on stilts as you can see, are part of a dancing organization. They wander though the streets with a band playing (kind of reminds us of New Orleans), dancing, smiling, and waving.

Oh, and they have donation buckets available, in case you'd like to give the cash as a way of showing appreciation for their show.

Along the street, Havanna shows a museum piece outside of the La Habana Vieja Avenida del Puerto Port train engineer 1181. Train was a good way to get around Cuba in the past, before the revolution, and this training piece on display in the street, takes the tourists and locals that walk by into the past glory of some of Cuba.

This is a beautiful picture of Adelina on the main street, a few blocks north of the entry to the cruise ship terminal. Note the 19050's cars along the street.. all in mint condition. Won't see that any place else.

This picture is in the same area as above, but with a closeup of the statue in the background. This statue is on the other side of the bay, and is called Monte Christo, or the Mountain of Christ.

I can only assume that, even though Communism is, in it's heart, athestic, the Cuban people have maintained a close relationship with the Lord via their Catholic roots, and this is seen in numerous things, like cathedrals, statues, art, etc.

As we walk although the main street outside the cruise ship terminal, we see the bow of our ship standing tall and proud along the pier. It is our hotel, home, party palace, and food source (since we are electing to not eat in Cuba due to the uncertainty of the cleanliness of the resturants.

Here is a view of the bottom level of the cruise ship terminal. This area is where the local park (at least those with vehicles), and also where the tours collect and join the business that come.

Now this area looks good and clean and respectiable. Trust me, it's a dicotomy to some of the areas in the city, just blocks away.

We take a night tour of the city of Havanna. One of our stops is the original Sloppy Joe's restaurant, started in Havanna. In addition to the lovely Adelina, you can see walls with pictures. These are old pictures of actors and VIP's from days of old. One is a very young Frank Sinatra, having a great time and presumably eating sloppy joe's.

A view outside the Sloopy Joe resturant in Havanna. This picture shows the typical diacotomy of this area, the new with the old.

Looking to the right of the picture, you see what looks like a well kept building, all lit up. Immediately to it's left, you see a old building, not light at all, and clarly not taken care of. Then a building to the left of that that looks like it's being maintained, but not as well as the buliding on the right.

As we do our night tour of Havanna, we come across a row of very well maintained, 1950's ear cars. Presumably, these are taxi cabs down for the night.

Now what is apparently the most popular night club in Havanna, named La Bodeguita Del Medio, we arrive on our tour for a taste of night life in Havanna. This place is popular enough that tourist trinkets, like refigerator magnets, have this establishment as one of the magnets. Also post cards.

Now you have to give it that this is New Year's eve.. but folks are partying in the middle of the street. But then again, the place itself is so small, that all these poeple can't fit in the place. And there are not THAT many poeple. It's just a very small (albiet popular) place.

Here is the popular night spot, La Bodeguita Del Medio (see picture above). This is a straight on view. You can see that this place is very small. Most small outfit businesses are probably small, due to costs, incomes, etc.

But you can't beat partying in the street.. draws a lot of attention and thus, business. Apparently, this is not a problem with the law to dring and party in the street. Some goes for smoking, etc.

Now this picture is unique. This is the Catherdral Plaza, just literally down the street from La Bodeguita Deal Medio. It would not normally have many people in it at night, especially during the week.

But this is New Year's eve. There is a big, private, party in Cathedral Plaze, including a band. Not sure who arranged it, but we saw a number of people from the ship, very formally dressed, coming off the ship, heading to this venue.

We were on board the ship to celebrate New Year's there. But I'm sure the folks here had a great time.

More interesting art in Havanna. Not sure what this art is intended to convey, but the building behind it is the Basilica Menor de San Francisco de Asis. Built around 1585, it was the home to many influential Havanna citizens.

Here, Adelina is sitting with a local friend from Cuba, outside a local high-end restaurant, who apparently, is sitting pretty close and kissing her arm. I'm jealous.

Bill tried punching his lights out for getting fresh with his wife... but hurt his knuckles. These Cuban guys are made of stern stuff..

A nice pic of the Cathedral of Francisi of Assisi, across from the ship terminal, at night.

Getting back to the ship, we are greeted in our cabin my Mr. Frog. How the heck did he get in here?

We decided to party on the ship for New Years Eve. The main reason is that there doesn't seem to be that much going on in Havanna on New Year's. Our tour guide told us earlier this is because the 1959 Castro revolution occurred around New Years. So this time of year has, in the past, been more of a celebration of the revolution, than of New Year.

Times are beginning to change somewhat (Note the pic of the party at the Cathedral plaza earlier). But no fireworks, ore big public parties, etc. But there ARE on the ship.

Here we take a pic of the to of the ships atrium, about 10 decks up. With ballons ready to rain down on us at the appropriate time.

New Year's partying on the ship. A very active place, I'll say. A good time had by all. Can't speak though for the next morning..

Happy New Year!!

Note, cruise ships almost always maintain ships time to be the same as the port of departure time. So we were celebrating New Year with the U.S. east coast (which is Havanna time anyway).

We stayed overnight in Havanna. The ship didn't leave until around noon, so we had time to continue exploring the city the next morning.

The grim reaper came for us the next morning. But he didn't move very fast and we were able to outrun him.

We come across a little city park with a statue of Simon Bolivar, noted as "The Liberator". This guy was the main military guy that liberated a number of South American countries from Spain in the 1800's.

I'm guessing Cuba was liberated from Spain by this guy also.

Victor Hugo, was a French Poet, Novelist, and Dramatist. Popular works by him include Les Miserables, and The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

He lived in Cuba and the home he lived in, in Havanna, is a popular tourist spot. Here our traveling companion, Jennifer, poses in front of his house.

Another local street in Havanna, where local people live and work. Some buildings look kept up, others, not so.

We've walked about 10 blocks from the water and the cruises ship now. So we've done our excercise for the day.

Jose Marti was a little bit of everything; Journalist, poet, translater, professor, and a political activiest. He is considered a national hero in Cuba. And so he gets a prime spot in the main park/square of Havanna.

Across the street and to the left from here is the Havanna capital building, to which we saw a part of, in an earlier picture.

Here is a picture of the Cuba Captial building. Presumably the Cuban Parlament meets here. Unclear to me exactly what the Parlament does, or how much authority they have. But they do have a nice, and well maintained building.

We are across the street from the building as we take this picture. Immediately behind us is another building, very delapitated, and, frankly, it woudl be condemmed in the U.S. More Cuban diacotomy.

This street is just a block from the captial building. It is more indicitive to how "the normal" poeple live. You can see that the revolution didn't really add value to the people. Communism never does.

We depart Cuba and arrive the next day in the Bahamas. At breakfast, while the ship is docked, we finally get an internet connection. So our party, at breakfast, enjoys a find time of comradery together... or catching up on email, that is..

A view from the ship to the pier in the Bahamas. Quite a contrast to Havanna, yes?

Some nice artwork on watermelons at the ship's buffet at breakfast, to celebrate New Year. Since they did all the work to make these watermelon art pieces, I figure I might as well take and post the picture of them. Skilled people..

We took a tour to a private island in the Bahamas to enjoy some quiet, peaceful time, and to enjoy the warm water at the beach, in the Bahamas. We get there by boat, and view the cruise ship port as we depart.

Five ships! Wow. If you take, say 4K passengers per ship, that is almost 10K people visiting the islands!

A view of the Atlantis hotel in the Bahamas, as we depart the cruise ship terminal for a private island and a beach experience.

A view of an old restaurant that is no longer in use, as we leave the main port of the Bahamas. Interesting building, albiet, not in use.

Ahh... we arrive at our private island in the Bahamas, to enjoy some quite time and warm water, after our sightseeing and touring of Havanna. Looks great. Can't wait to get into the water! Our tour include drinks and lunch!

Adelina and our traveling companion Jennifer enjoying the cool water of the Bahamas. The beach is wonderful. We had lunch and some drinks, and were able to relax in beach chairs and enjoy the water, the sun, and the blessings from the Lord, at this wonderful place.

Adelina and Jennifer smiling for the camera, after a fun an refreshing dip in the wonderful water of the Caribbean.

Upon returning to the mail port in the Bahamas, we do a little shopping. We find a very pictureske place to take a wonderful picture of Adelina and also of our traveling companion, Jennifer.

Arrr.. ye swaps.. avast and be keel hauled... or just shop and spend money in the Bahamas...

As we get back to the ship, a puppy dog is waiting for us in our cabin.

oooohhh.. Cutesie, wootsie....!

Tomorrow, we arrive in Miami and head for home... our vacation is done.