Day 183 to 184 - I need more cash, don't cancel my card!

Cancun

We were staying in the hotel zone in Cancun, a stretch which consists of shoulder to shoulder resorts and hotels along the length of the peninsula, but with gorgeous beaches and views.

K was still heavily restricted, her leg and back are badly bruised, with the bruising and swelling spreading to her ankle, it would be difficult to imagine a leg more swollen and bruised without breaking a bone! Fortunately there is a pretty good bus system in Cancun, we never had to wait more than a minute for a bus to come by, and there are so many that they seem to race each other down the road, overtaking each other as they appear to compete to collect the most passengers, we were wondering if they get paid according to how many passengers they have.

Fresh lobster at the supermarket!

We spent some time on our travel arrangements to Cuba, including withdrawing cash and getting it changed into Euros. We were told that Euros are the way to go as there is a 10% hit on changing from US dollars in Cuba. There are some ATMs in Cuba, but our travel/credit cards (Citibank and 28 Degreess) are from American owned companies, so they won't work in Cuba at all. We ended up making multiple trips to the ATM over a few days to get what we needed, and at one stage there was a frantic call to Australia to one bank as they had blocked one of the cards over what appeared to be a dubious transaction.

We were also able to book our accommodation in Cuba via Airbnb as many of the "Casa Particulares" are listed along with photos and reviews. One big advantage of Airbnb here was that as everything is paid for over the internet, so at least accommodation was something we didn't need to bring cash for.

It wasn't all travel preparation though, the ocean looked very inviting so we did spend a little bit of time on the beach, the beach is so long and wide that it wasn't crowded at all, and the water was the perfect temperature for a bit of swimming.