Tuesday November 18, 2014

A good breakfast at the hotel, and we were away at 8:30, again the temperature was already 26 degrees.  We said our goodbyes to leanna, she was heading back towards Havana

The route was through the valley and was very pretty. We had one big hill to climb and got the rewards of the downhill, on the other side. The road we were on was a major gravel hauling route – it was busy but all the trucks gave us lots of room, even though they blew fumes of diesel at us as they passed us.

I am not sure which is worse for me at the moment the humidity or the diesel fumes when vehicles pass us.

José from the casa in Remedios recommended a casa in Moron. When we arrived in Moron our casa host (Oscar) was waiting for us at the entrance to the town and cycled with us to his casa. I had thought it might be nice to stay in a hotel again, especially if it had a pool and I could relax by the pool, while Ralf investigated the town. No such luck, we are in a casa with a tiny room and even tinier bathroom. It does have air conditioning and a fan, but that will keep us awake half the night, we are going to melt tonight.

Our intended route tomorrow is 70 kms, we will have to see how early we can get started, and see if we make the next town. Oscar is not sure if there is a casa particular there or not. He has taken our map and will give us casa addresses for the route that we plan to take towards Baracoa.

After a lunch of ham and cheese sandwiches, Ralf went to discover the town. I was tired and decided to stay at the casa and read my book – I have discovered I can read the books that I purchased for my kobo on my computer. My version of heaven, being able to sit and relax and read. We had asked our hosts if they could do our laundry for us, this is normal in the casas and they usually do it willingly. However, I was embarrassed to witness Oscar filling the washing machine and starting to do my laundry. If I had known he was going to be doing it I would have quite happily done it myself in the sink and used their spinner.

Ralf had fun chatting to the people in the town at the local crafts market.

During the evenings conversation Oscar was concerned about the route we were planning on taking along the coast. Very bad road and no casas. He suggested taking the carrerrata but we didn’t want to take the central carrareta twice. However, he seemed adamant that the northern road was very very bad, we decided to head south to Ciego de Aquila and follow the central carrerata to Holguin. We will see which way we go after Holguin when we talk to more people in that area.