Having had relatively few guests during our first six months, the weeks after Christmas were filled with lots of visitors.
First of all was one of Bonnie's old housemates from London who is embarking on a trip round the world snorkelling, so what better place to start than the crystal clear waters of the Cayman Islands. While Barn was at work, Bonnie was busy showing her around the Island. We even took her on a special trip to snorkel the Kittiwake, which is an ex US Navy submarine rescue vessel that was deliberately sunk off seven mile beach to form an artificial reef. It is a spectacular sight to behold. As you approach the site there is nothing but the sandy bottom, and then all of a sudden the vessel looms into sight. The wreck is a marine park, and it is surrounded by shoals of fish of all kinds. It is also a diving site, and the sight of tours of divers emerging through the funnel is pretty surreal.
Next came Barny's parents, who stayed with us for three weeks.
They have always wanted to go to Cuba, and so have we, so we arranged a 5 day trip to Havana with them. We let mummy and daddy Finnigan have a day to recover from their flight over from the UK, and then we were off!
We landed in Cuba on a Thursday afternoon and, having cleared customs and immigration (which was far less painful than flying through Miami) we headed in to Vieja Habana to find our hotel. We were staying in the Hotel Santa Isabel, a beautiful old palazzo right in the heart of the old town (http://www.hotelsantaisabel.com/) which had been built in the 1700s. Our expectations of standards in Cuba were pretty low, given what we had been told by friends who had been, but the hotel was very nice. We spent our first couple of days exploring the old town. Although Havana is a huge city the old town is actually fairly compact, and very quaint with its 17th and 18th century buildings and cobbled streets. From our rooms we had a view over the square, past the booksellers stalls to the La Giralda fort and out into the bay. The old town of Havana is beautiful, and the general state of delapidation of many of the buildings only adds to the atmosphere.
Although Cuba is not well known for its food, we did spend a significant amount of time exploring the bars and coffee houses of the old town, including some of Hemmingway's old haunts. On our first night we hit the Hotel Los Ambos Mundos (where Ernest shacked up when he was in town, and which has a great roof bar) for a coffee and a rum, which became a firm favourie. Bonnie and I also had a Mojito or three in La Bodegua del Medio (where the perfect Mojito was apparently invented), and although we didn't make it to La Floridita, where the Daquiri was perfected, we certainly tried a few rival attempts which were pretty good.
Of course, spending time in Cuba is not just about drinking rum and having a good time (although there is plenty of both - the Cubans certainly know how to party). On the Friday we decided to take the Big Red Bus tour to get a feel for the lie of the land. Once you get out of the old town, you quickly realise that much of Havana is suspended in a 1940's and 50's timewarp, and has been left to slowly decay. If it weren't for the dilapidated state of the buildings and the cars you could be back in the Florida or California of the 1940s. We drove past what had been beautiful villas that have been left to fall apart, but which would have been very impressive in their heyday, and some amazing 1920s and 1930s hotels and theatres. And every so often you would see a gap full of rubble where a building had recently collapsed, some of which gave further glimpses to the Havana of the past. We rounded the day off with a trip to the Museum of the Revolution, which is housed in the old presidential palace (complete with bullet holes from the student uprising that started the overthrow of Batista). It was interesting to hear the story of the revolution, the rise of Castro, the role of Che and the Bay of Pigs.
One thing that surprised us about Cuba was the emphasis which has been placed on the arts. There is a fantastic ballet company, and Cubans can go to the ballet for a few pence (although the rates for foreigners are much steeper, with tickets starting around US$20. Probably our favourite find of the trip was the Cuban National Art Gallery, which houses paintings from the top Cuban artists, as well as some internationally known pieces. Not only was the art good, but the buildings it was housed in were also very interesting, and we spent several hours exploring the collection.
After 5 days in Havana it was time to bring Mamma and Pappa Finnigan back to the Cayman Islands. We really enjoyed showing them the sights of the Island. There were trips to all the sights - the National Museum, Pedro St James, the National Gallery, the Botanical Gardens and drives round to East End. We weren't sure whether they would like the Island, but we were glad to find that they did! As being in the water is a big part of Island life, Bonnie took it upon herself to teach the in-laws how to snorkel. Never having tried it before, we weren't sure how they would take to it (particularly as my dad isn't a very strong swimmer). After a few false starts they got the hang of it, so we thought we'd take them out to Stingray City to see the stingrays. Unfortunately, unbeknown to us "stingray city" is not actually the sandbar, where you can wade into the water with the rays, it is actually another feeding spot that is about 20 feet deep, with a fairly strong current. With hindsight it was probably not the best place to take a couple of inexperienced snorklers in their mid 60s, but they were very game and seemed to enjoy the experience (at least that's what they told us), even if there was a 10 foot Moray eel called Psycho swimming amongst the stingrays!
The three weeks went very quickly, and on the Finnigan seniors' last day we were joined by another of Bonnie's friends who had come out to join us for a week of diving. We joined her for another trip to stingray city, and this time Barny went scuba diving with the rays, which was a brilliant experience, very different from handling them at the sandbar. Although it had been wonderful to spend time with all our visitors, we were finding that nearly 2 months of Christmas, dinners and cocktails out with our guests was taking its toll, and it was actually quite nice to have a bit of a detox, with few quiet nights in eating steamed vegetables and salad.
The start of March saw Barny leave the island to head to Miami for a weekend with the boys where they were competing in the Miami Tough Mudder adventure race. This is a 13 mile long obstacle course, with the objects ranging from the "Arctic Enema", a plunge into an ice filled pool, through to the "Electric Eel", a scramble over an electrified fence, with plenty of other equally challenging obstacles in between. Needless to say the boys had a great time, and returned from Miami on a wave of Mudder pride.
If Bonnie had been able to fly, she may have joined Barny in Miami, but as she is 9 months pregnant she has not been able to board an aircraft for several weeks. She did take the opportunity to head up to Miami for her own girls weekend while she could still fly, and enjoyed doing some baby shopping to kit out the nursery. There are now only a few weeks until we get to meet the latest addition to the Finnigan family, and Bonnie has been busy nesting. We have spent the last couple of months setting up the nursery, and making the most of our last few weeks of just being the two of us to enjoy some of the things we have not yet managed to do in Cayman.
As we couldn't leave the island over Easter, we seemed to spend most of our time eating and drinking instead. We tried several of the restaurants we had not visited to date. On Good Friday we headed out into West Bay to dine at Pappagallos restaurant, a fine Italian restaurant on the edge of a lake in the Barkers park. It was absolutely fantastic, and we can't believe we haven't found it sooner. On Easter Sunday we enjoyed a lovely brunch at the Westin, which certainly rivals the Ritz in terms of quality. Although the weather was not great, we spent the rest of the time relaxing like tourists, with trips to Rum Point and Kaibo to watch the kite festival on Easter Monday, and making the most of the time to enjoy each others company while there are just the two of us.
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