Thursday November 6, 2014

Another good start at 8:20 after a nice breakfast of boiled eggs. Trying to explain how we wanted our eggs cooked this morning took all Ralf’s prowess with charades. We weren’t sure we were going to get boiled eggs until they arrived, they weren’t soft boiled but hey one thing at a time. Both Ralf and our host were very pleased that we got what we had asked for.

Our route should have taken us south to Guira de Melena, but two things changed that route. The first one was a stop at a “National monument”. We had seen a sign on the road and spotted some arches along a dirt road. It was an old coffee plantation with what would have been a very beautiful plantation house.

An older fella was sitting near one of the outbuildings who encouraged us to park our bikes. At first we just wanted to take a few photos and carry on. However, the guide, who spoke quite good English started to explain the history of the house and the lands. Apparently a German plantation had a love affair with a black slave, of course she was not allowed in the principal house, but he built a very nice house for her and allowed her to have a business selling food and commodities to other slaves.

The German was a very compassionate slave owner, he provided a kindergarten, a hospital and a church. The married slaves had their own houses and on the first of the year every year he gave them a day off and gave them new clothes – 2 shirts and 2 pairs of trousers! He always had two explanations available for the government to explain all the “Benefits” he was giving to his slaves and especially to his lover – the black slave Ursula. He treated them as people not as animals, unheard of back in the day.

He also told us about the fact that only 2 kilometres from the plantation was a Russian missile emplacement during the Bay of Pigs, and one of the old water cisterns had been used for Raul´s bunker.

After he had given us the tour of the property, we chatted briefly about Cuba. He was pleased to hear that we had visited Cuba often, but when we commented on the changes that we had seen especially in the last few years, he gave us his opinion of Cuba. He said that people should not complain about Fidel, he has given them free education, free health care, housing, etc. They don’t have all their wants but on the whole their needs are covered. He did admit that the food shortages are still an issue. Which still makes me feel bad, because tourists are always fed well. He had travelled and worked in Venezuela and Brazil and been encouraged to stay there. He was a geologist engineer and worked in gold mines, he could have stayed but he always wanted to come home. He tells his son “In other countries people are a slave to their work. To buy all the things that are offered, you have to work many hours and no time for family or fishing”. A very intelligent man and very interesting to talk to.

He said Cuba has its problems, but it has free education, free medical, and free housing. I might not have a car but I have time for family and fishing. A wise man that knows that “family and fishing” are more important than cars, big screen tv etc.

The rest of our ride was quite uneventful and through sugar cane fields.

We arrived in Artemesia and needed to find a bank, we are not sure when we will be near a big Town over the next few days, so needed to top up the wallet. We stopped and had a sandwich at a hole in the wall café and asked for directions. We found the bank and Ralf was told he had to use the bank machine. The dam thing paid him out in CUC 5.00 bills!!

We then thought we would stay in Artemesia for the night, it was fairly early but figured that it was a big town (the Provincial capital) and should be able to find a casa. But, no we could not find a casa and were directed to the next town.No casa there either, we eventually headed north to Guanajay and found a room for rent, not an official casa but that is fine. I felt as if we were being over-charged for the room. We were charged the standard rate for an official casa, I should have haggled, but I don’t think he would have come down at all.

He also asked Ralf what was happening in Canada with the shooting in Ottawa. He took Ralf a bit off-guard, he hadn’t expected the news of the shooting in Ottawa to reach Cuba. The casa owner said – Canada is such a quiet country what is happening?

We had a nice wander around the town and the square and sat with our ice-creams and watched people. There is a real mix of ethnicities here, Spanish descendants, black, a few Chinese and the mix of all these races. It was very interesting. The other interesting thing was to see the high school kids leave school – the percentage of girls to boys is very high. Far more girls are going to high school than boys. I will have to ask someone what the percentage of male/female are and what the percentage of male/female are staying at school through high school.

We also met two Austrian touring cyclists from Vienna, who were looking for something to eat, and were staying Las Terrasaz tonight, we met them around 3:00 and they still had a fair distance to go. Nice couple who were going to donate their bikes when they left.

Again we had a good meal in the casa, this was the first time we had the perfect amount of food.

After dinner Ralf and I had a very interesting discussion about “home”. On my homesick days when I am feeling tired and need a day of the bike. Or if things aren’t going quite right and I want to go home – where do I consider home? This is going to sound morbid but I always consider where would I want to live if something happened to Ralf, basically where is my home? Home for me is Barrie, Ontario. That is where I consider home. I have not lived in England for almost 20 years and although most of my family are there and there are occasions when I miss them, I feel at home in Canada.

Ralf still hasn’t found his home. He said that last time he felt “at home” is 25 years ago when we lived in Germany.