Retreat

Whenever I've thought of taking a vacation, an all-inclusive resort has never been on my top-10 list of destinations.

Nor my top 20.

Nor my top 50.

When I plan a vacation, I plan to travel, to explore a country or a province, or a region, or a city. I like to move around, see the people, experience the culture, the food, the music, the local life.

For those of you who have read my blog posts about travelling around Italy, or France, Arizona, California, Scotland, and more, you know that I don't write about the hotel: I write about getting out there and immersing myself in everything my destination has to offer.

I don't like to sit still for very long.

For a few years, my family and I have talked about visiting the UK, seeing London, exploring the small towns in the countryside, working our way up to Scotland, where we would have to stop in Edinburgh and North Berwick, but would also go up to the highlands, where I've never been.

And then my foot had other plans, and we placed the UK on hold until after my surgery, when my foot healed and would be inclined to carry me on short hikes.

Next year. We're now aiming for next year.

The question turned to where we could go, where I could get around but wouldn't need to wander far. We thought of Ireland, driving from town to town, where I would have little difficulty walking through narrow streets. But such a trip would require at least a month of planning, and I was running out of time. My surgery will be sometime in July or August, and I couldn't plan a vacation for then.

We had to go now.

We thought about Cuba. I've wanted to go for a few years, wanted to see Havana and the surrounding countryside before the Americans ended their embargo and their greedy corporations ruined everything. Again, we thought that my foot might hinder exploring the countryside, so we thought that we would stay at a resort from where we would plan day trips to Havana and Trinidad.

So that's what we did.

I have an aunt who owns a travel agency, and a call was made. DW and I have always booked our flights, always booked our accommodation, always arranged every aspect of our vacations. But my aunt specializes in such resort vacations, and she found us a great place for an amazing deal, which saved us a lot of time as well as money.

Within about 10 days of contacting her, we were off...