The old Bacardi rum plant in Santiago de Cuba has been abandoned for some time since Bacardi left Cuba for the US. The water tower at the old plant is in the shape of a Bacardi rum bottle.

The delivery truck gate at the Bacardi plant clearly shows the years of neglect and lack of use. Notice the absence of graffiti - in North America this gate would be slammed with graffiti!

Cuba is inundated with these bland Russian designed and built apartment buildings. Most haven't seen paint in decades. Even little remote towns throughout the island have these eyesores.

Havana Cadillac - what model and year? It certainly has been "amended" over the past 50 years or so.

Well, with the crappy spring weather we're having right now, going down to 5C this afternoon, I'm remembering fondly lying under this palm in Santiago de Cuba a few weeks ago when it was a beautiful 33C.

Taken at Cayo Coco, Cuba. I have no idea why these rails would be here at the edge of the sea.

This is an evening beach shot taken near Trinidad de Cuba on the Island's southern shore.

After reading the news this morning about the tornado that demolished Missouri, I was looking at some of my Cuba photos and found this one. This was taken in Las Tunas in central Cuba just before a bit of rain. The huge difference is that this tornado looking funnel has nothing to do with a tornado; it's smoke from a fire that briefly looked like a tornado.

They're installed; now it's time to load 'em up.

The granite counter guys are s'possed to come in this week to make a template for the counter tops, then it will be backsplash time.

Risto and Rick relax after the final clean up. The cabinets are great; Risto did a fabulous job!!

Yesterday, Risto completed the installation of the upper cabinets in our kitchen. To say we are pleased would be an understatement. Today - the lowers go in.

I went out for a shakedown cruise in the Fortuitous yesterday afternoon. What a fabulous day to be on the lake. It looks even better today!!

This happening right now 10:30am in our kitchen. Risto just arrived to install our new kitchen.

All ready to be set up.

Photos later today to show progress.

This is a beautiful "baby boomer" American car in Playa Larga at the bay of Pigs in Cuba. What make, model and year is it? Mr. FKIA?

Trinidad de Cuba, on the south side of the island, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and dates back to the 1500s.

For a small town, it has some pretty amazing architecture.

Few of the buildings have been painted recently, but lots are painted in typical Caribean pastel colours.

All the streets in the old part of town are stone or cobbled, but not like the European type of cobbles which in comparison are neat and orderly - they are impossibly random.

Many of the building have had some work to preserve them, but some look like they are "in line" for preservation.

Here are some more photos of the palace in Cienfuegos posted yesterday. This is the main room on the first floor that is now used as a restaurant.

At the foot of the main stairs leading to the 2nd floor is a piano, and as groups of tourists appear this elderly woman plays some jazz and classical music and sings - very cool!

The view from the roof deck looking over the bay.

This is the main canopy area on the roof deck.

In the center of this photo beyond the tree line is an old Russian nuclear plant similar to the Chernobyl reactor. The glaring difference is that this one was never completed as it was abandoned when the Russians pulled out of Cuba in the early 90s. Since then, it has been totally neglected, left to the ravages of time as the Cubans have no money or expertise to finish it.

Cienfuegos in southern Cuba is a beautiful city. It was founded in the early 1800s by the French and is a UNESCO World Heritage site because of its architecture. The photos posted here are of the Palacia de Valle (Valle's Palace), a fabulous building of which I'll post more photos.

A view over the bay from the roof of the palace.

This was taken from across the street looking at the palace.

How do you get around in Havana? Well, one way is to cram the family into a pre 1959 American car, rust free, with 17th generation higher riding shocks that are almost worn out, bald tires, and a black smoke belching under-perfroming diesel engine.

Behind the demonstration area, stand, stage and huge array of Cuban flags is the U.S. Embassy. The apparent theme here, from both sides, is basically "up yours!"

We went to the Bay of Pigs 2 weeks after the 50th anniversary of the invasion, so the signs in this post are either new or freshly painted.

This is the gate area of the huge Zapata swamp where the invaders got bogged down.

More propaganda signs.

I'm not sure of the name of this tree, but there are a lot of these trees everywhere in Cuba, and they are also yellow and other light pastel colours.

Havana mangos, not yet ripe, but when they are, oh so yummy!

Marsha and Liuba walking on the shores of the Bay of Pigs at Playa Larga, the same beaches the "Cuban" fighters landed at in the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961, exactly 50 years and 2 weeks before this picture was taken.

A 1934 Ford waits on the beach while its occupants enjoy a beach day.

This is a one man machine gun bunker, now sealed, that was constructed on the beach after the Bay of Pigs invasion. There were no such defenses prior to the invasion.

This is another sealed up machine gun bunker similar to the one above. There were also cement tank "stoppers" along the beach and near the road to prevent invading tanks from moving around, also constructed after the invasion.

Crabs.. Every morning they invade the shore areas of Cuba's Bay of Pigs.

Yellow crabs the size of baseballs.

Red crabs similar in size to the yellow ones.

These crabs were all over the roofed walkway leading into the restaurant at the resort we stayed overnight in at Playa Larga.

Crab Massacre on the Bay of Pigs

Holy crunch Batman. Every morning the crabs try to cross the road to get to the other side, obviously, but for what reason? No se. This occurs over a 20-30 km stretch of road along the east side of the Bay of Pigs in Southern Cuba. By mid afternoon, all that is left of the carnage is a roadway of crushed and mauled carcasses (for those crab eating lovers I didn't take any photos of the after results). The locals and touristos can't avoid these guys, so in their travels they drive right over them. We must have "terminated" hundreds if not thousands. The local turkey vultures are extremely healthy, and in one instance they were bold and aggressive as a group of 5 or 6 chowing down in the middle of the road refused to move. We slowed down to a crawl and got to within 2 meters of them before they begrudgingly flew off. If we had continued driving at the speed we were at, we not only would we have continued to crush crabs, we would have been able to stencil a few buzzards on the front of the car.

Looking eastward along the beaches of Cayo Coco, Cuba.

... mmmmm ... Cuba ....