That's Cuba, Baby!

We're back!

We had a wonderfully romantic time.

We are sun-kissed - actually, I have racoon eyes from my sunglasses.

We missed the children.

We're refreshed and ready to take on the world - as long as I can do it from inside - it's -28C today.

Mortgage Burner and JB were right - it was Cuba! I'll hook up with you guys for your prize.

Here's a quick rundown on what we did and saw...

- We played on the beach.

- We played beach volleyball...every day!

- We biked about a 7km radius of the resort in different directions. I wanted to see as much as I could without going on commercial (crowded) tours.

- We went to the market.

- A gardener cut down a fresh coconut for us to try. Mmmm...

- We paid a horse and buggy driver to take us touring. We had been to town, so wanted him to take us to a school, some farms, tour 'real' Cuba. He didn't speak any English. We are learning Spanish, but our vocabulary is still very limited, so...Dwayne leaned over and asked him to take us to couple of farms. He smiled and nodded. He drove us to town. Where are we going? He stopped outside a building and wanted us to get out. I asked him where we were. "Pharmacy."

Struggling to communicate, words like 'casa' and 'bambino' finally got us to a school and a couple of farms. We had packed one of our suitcases with gifts - school supplies, puzzles, toothbrushes, clothing. It was fun to be able to give them out. Hurricane Ike hit this area pretty hard and there is more need than usual.

- We played watersports, snorkelling, went on a catamaran.

- We got our room upgraded to oceanview when Dwayne called the reception to tell them that his wife had seen a rat (yep, rat) in our room, was standing on the bed and wouldn't sleep in the room anymore. They sent their 'technician' up (read: non-English-speaking man with a small flashlight and a 1X4). That's Cuba, baby!

- The bartenders got a kick out of the white-Canadian-lady who always ordered, "Something good, no alcohol." They insisted it would be much better if I got the 'real thing'.

- I beat Dwayne in chess. This doesn't happen very often, so it is worth mentioning.

- Dwayne says that you can't go to Cuba and not smoke a cigar. I didn't feel the same way, myself. I thought the shot looked like Pinocchio's Pleasure Island. BTW, I confess that I nagged a little. I mean, cigars are simply vile. To my relief, he only had one.

Although it was paradise, it was nice to come home and hold my babies.