Return to Havana

Cienfuegos to Havana, Cuba, 8 September 2016

I am back from Sabah. Mostly there was no internet and no time so there will be no temporary posts. I will start with posts on Sabah soon but first here is the final post on the tour in Cuba. Jools and I stayed on for some extra days in Havana and we will return to that after the Sabah posts.

Early in the morning in Cienfuegos, here are two people fishing with a freighter behind them.

A little later, trimming the verges with machetes.

This is the hotel where we were staying.

“It is the ideas that make us a fighting people.”

I think this is a Zetor tractor from Czechoslovakia.

Quite a few horses and carts on the roads..

Roadside house.

IOM3 tractor from Belarus and military truck.

Same military truck and horse & cart.

Horse and cart, truck and turkey vulture.

Probably a Chev.

More horses and carts …

We meet again …

On the road again.

(though neither Canned Heat nor Floyd Jones in evidence).

This image and the previous six were all taken within about ten minutes, mainly from the bus.

Roadside shop for onions and garlic.

Band at our hotel in Havana (Hotel Santa Isabel).

On the streets in Havana.

View including Castillo de la Fuerza Real.

Looking down from the hotel room.

People are sitting round on the street to use the hotel’s wifi.

Castillo de la Fuerza Real.

Taxi.

Street corner with sunset approaching.

On the street, after dark.

The wifi zone again, this time at night in the rain.

Cienfuegos

Apr27

Cienfuegos, Cuba, 7 September 2016

We headed off from Trinidad de Cuba to Cienfuegos.

The passenger in the cart with his bicycle is lucky the truck isn’t heading into the wind.

Roadside billboard quoting Ché: “May the hardness of these times not make us lose the tenderness of our hearts. Ever onward to victory”.

We are now in the outskirts of Cienfuegos.

Some of the cars are smaller than others.

Views from our hotel room…

We are now in Palacio Ferrer, at the edge of Parque José Marti.

It was built between 1917 and 1918, initially as a family residence.

Looking down past Parque José Marti from the top of Palacio Ferrer.

The area around Cienfuegos was a Taino (Indian) settlement in the early period of Spanish occupation. They were decimated mainly by disease but communities survive in the mountains. Cienfuegos was founded by French immigrants in 1819 and thus has a French influence unusual for Cuba. The centre of Cienfuegos is a World Heritage Area, representing “the best extant example of early 19th century Spanish Enlightenment implementation in urban planning”.

Catedral de la Purisma Conception.

Palacio de Gobierno.

We walked down to the harbour.

On the harbour-front promenade.

There was a group of people doing curious exercises on a road beside the harbour.

Sunlight through the clouds as evening approaches.

There are more posts on Cuba and on the Caribbean to come, but this will be the last for a little while as I am off on a short trip in a few days. More on that tomorrow.

Trinidad de Cuba

Apr24

Trinidad de Cuba, Cuba, 6 September 2016

Due to the fiascos of our tour organisation, instead of spending time in forests and waterfalls, we spent the day in the town of Trinidad de Cuba, This turned out to be a good thing.

This is a 1957 Plymouth. It says so on the windscreen.

This is a town of many tractors.

Cathedral clock tower in the background.

Band in the Plaza Major.

People on the streets.

It is Cuba’s best preserved old colonial town and the centre area is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Musicians for sale rather than for hire.

Local gallery and hostal or B&B.

Market near the Plaza Major.

It’s an Anole, perhaps Allison’s Anole ( / Blue-Headed Anole).

1952 Ford. loading up to leave a B&B,.

The beauty and the beast, maybe.

1954 Chevrolet.

Not everyone drives cars …

… or rides horses….

Trinidad de Cuba was founded in 1514 and Cortes recruited here and left from here on his conquest of the Aztec Empire.

We also stopped by at a beach a few kilometres from Trinidad de Cuba – Playa Ancon.

Ponies and People Monochromes (Hemis NP)

Apr26

24 January to 2 February 2018, Hemis National Park, Ladakh.

(Ladakh Trip).

Links go to posts with the colour versions of the images (where there may also be more information). If an image does not have a link (or a caption), the preceding one applies.

A bridge festooned with prayer flags and banners.

Our drivers conducting a ceremony to bless our trip with good fortune.

Ponies coming to pick up our baggage to the camp.

Tashi the Yak.

Ponies.

Tea is on the way.

Blue Sheep.

Crossing the ice in the frozen river.

Loading the ponies to move camp.

Moving camp,

Crossing the icy stream in front of the new camp.

Ponies returning to Rumbak Village.

Rumbak Village.

Walking through Rumbak Village on the way to the High Plateau.

Walking out.

Slipped on the ice.

Back to the bridge.

Walking Out

Apr1

2 February 2018, Hemis National Park, Ladakh, India

After breakfast, we packed up and prepared to walk out of the national park. Here the ponies are being fed prior to taking our stuff back along the trail.

Our villager support crew is packing everything up with remarkable speed and efficiency.

A view of the frozen river.

The ponies pass us by carrying all our baggage. The chairs appear to be going back to Leh too.

One pony has slipped over crossing the ice on the frozen river. He is soon lifted up and got on his way.

Back in the cars, here are some views of the River Indus.

You may remember, this bridge was in the first image of the post Walking In. With some symmetry, this is the last image for Walking Out. These ponies are from another group.

On the Roof of the World

Mar30

1 February 2018, Hemis National Park, Ladakh, India

We are on our way to climb a high plateau behind Rumbak village. Passing through the village, here is a pony and three donkeys in a sheltered pen attached to a house.

A blue sheep skull in front of a house with animal feed on the roof.

Here we are climbing up to an intermediate ridge. In the high altitude, climbing is very slow going.

Turning around, Jools is behind me. Further back, Emma (wearing red) is pausing for breath and Tashi, our chief guide and organiser, is monitoring her progress.

We have reached the intermediate ridge. There is a stupa on a high point in the middle though you may need to click on the image to see it. They occur in places where you wonder about the effort to build them. You can also see a trail up to there.

I paused for this panorama. Stok Kangri, to the right of the cloud at the left, is the highest peak in Ladakh at 6,150 metres (20,200 feet).

Some of the others set off immediately for the small high plateau. I followed them after a time and missed the brief period of calm with no wind that those others encountered. This and following images are from the high plateau.

We are at 4,300 metres or 14,100 feet.

I called this post “On the Roof of the World”, a phrase which normally relates to Tibet. Well, we are on the Himalayan plateau in an area that is historically and culturally Tibetan (though part of India) and we are at one of the highest levels of Ladakh.

A closer view of Stok Kangri, highest peak in Ladakh.

Back in camp, I decided to venture out late at around 9pm when it was dark (and cold) for an image of the stars with the land illuminated by the light of the full moon.

We are at the same point where we viewed the three snow leopards. They were at the skyline at far right or perhaps further to the right.

There may be some constellations visible, for those who can pick them. Click the image for a larger view.

Rumbak

Mar15

25 January 2018, Hemis National Park, Ladakh, India

On the second day, we walked further in to visit the village of Rumbak.

On the way, behind the prayed flags and white silk, we encountered a frozen waterfall.

A closer look.

In the last post, Robert Hayes asked me what the white silks are for. The short answer is a kind of offering to gain merit and I found an article that explains the significance of silk in Buddhism in great detail.

A detail of the waterfall.

Some of the prayer flags were frozen into the ice below the waterfall.

The river we were walking along was also mainly frozen.

The view from a rise at the side valley leading to Rumbak. We are looking down the main valley. There’s another village some distance off in the end valley to the right but we didn’t visit there.

Tea is on the way. We received wonderful service from our support team, mainly villagers from Rumbak.

Here is Rumbak in the distance, a man and a horse walking in. There are more houses than this but they are spread out and not all visible at the same time from the trail in. There is also a small stupa on the hill behind the houses (click on the image to see this better). There are Buddhist monuments on many small peaks.

On the stupas in front of these houses are many carved stones. Traditionally during the long dark hours of winter, women weave cloth and make clothes while men carve stones.

Some of these houses, such as this one, offer home stays (but we were camping).

A stupa and some ruins at the back of the village. Note the zigzag walking trail on the mountain behind the stupa.
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Ruins of an old house, perched on the edge of a cliff that appears to have eroded away, from a time when houses were further up the valley.

People have lived in Rumbak for a long time.

Looking to the end of the valley.

Looking down on the village as we walk back from the stupa shown above.

We were offered tea in the village’s ceremonial hall. The main purpose of this room is for events that all the village gathers for such as marriages and births. This is the kitchen part of the room, with a stove and many brass pots, different ones for specific social events.

A last view of the mountains at the end of the valley, past the stupa we visited.

Looking up-river on the trail back to camp. The stupa is decorated with a flag and the skulls of blue sheep or bharal.

A distant mountain in dramatic late afternoon light.

Walking In

Mar13

24 January 2018, Hemis National Park, Ladakh, India

We are in the cars and heading towards Hemis National Park, where we are to camp for eight days.

On the way we pass a bridge festooned with prayer flags and banners.

We stop at a cairn near the side of the road festooned with prayer flags and white silk.

Our drivers are conducting a ceremony to bless our trip with good fortune.

Down below in the Indus River, a bank of ice has formed around a gravel bar.

Even before getting into the National Park, the view is wild and barren.

… and the mountains are majestic.

I stopped to take a picture of this footbridge which I surmise has seen better days…

… when some of the ponies came wandering down the road.

These are to take our bags from the cars to our camp.

It was not a long walk to the camp and here is the yak Tashi hanging around near the kitchen.

All the catering and organising is done by villagers from the nearby village Rumbak. We are beside a small river and here a hole has been made in the ice for our water supply.

A dramatic rock headland towers over the camp.

After lunch, we head off to look for snow leopards and encountered some of the ponies along the way.

We climb up to a ridge and some of our guides search for snow leopards in the mountain sides with spotting scopes. This is a view from there showing a large stone pen in the valley below.

We didn’t see any snow leopards though earlier we passed a spot where a snow leopard had rubbed against a rock, marked the spot and left an indistinct paw print. I didn’t think to take an image though it would have been fairly prosaic.

Nonetheless, we enjoy the play of the late afternoon light.

Rescuing Sheep

Mar5

Day 73. 11th September. Kerlingarfjöll to Landmannalaugar, Highlands, Iceland.

Driving along a very damp cold backcountry road, I came across a group of people and horses beside the road and stopped to see what was going on. It was autumn, winter was approaching and they had found a very late season lamb that would not survive left to its own devices.

I was driving from Kerlingarfjöll south-west along the F35 or Kjölur route and we are near the Hvítá Bridge. Later I would take a sharp left turn along the 32, F26 and F208 for my nighttime destination of Landmannalaugar. The green area around Landmannalaugar is the Fjallabak Nature Reserve.

Holding on to the lamb was one thing; they also needed to hang on to the ewe so it did not run off and leave the lamb separated from its mother.

So the horses waited patiently while this was happening.

One of the people asked me if I could transport the ewe and lamb in the back of my vehicle to a nearby barn and I was happy to agree. In any case, the lower interior was aluminium and easy to clean.

So here, the ewe and lamb are unloaded from the camper while a sheepdog carefully watches on to ensure that nothing is amiss.

Heading into the barn.

… where there were a number of very charming Icelandic horses.

A little later, I watched the sheep being mustered to more suitable pastures, perhaps their winter pastures. This is the bridge over the glacial river Hvítá. Not far away on the left is Hvítárvatn (or White Lake), a lake fed by the glaciers Suðurjökull and Norðurjökull (So, I presume, North and South Glaciers) of the icecap Langjökull.

I continued on my way. The rain grew heavier so I did not stop to take many photographs. This image and the next one are views of the Hvíta River to the south and west of the road, taken twenty and thirty minutes respectively further along the F35.

This image is probably a glimpse of the River Tungnaá. It and the last two are along the F208 on the way in to Landmannalaugar.

Not much scope for agriculture here.

This last image is Frostastaðavatn (or Frosty Lake), just before Landmannalaugar.

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Tag Archives: Horses