Monday December 22, 2014

A very quick ride today, it was relatively flat and not much of a headwind, our average speed was 18.5 kms. The road was good up until the last 10kms coming into Manzanillo and then it felt as if we were cycling on an old washboard.

As we left Media Luna we passed some quite intensive farming (for Cuba), we saw the first irrigation sprinkler system since we have been cycling around Cuba and of course lots of sugar cane fields. The farming was mainly vegetables, tomatoes, potatoes, onions and smaller fields of corn.

We also left the clean air of the Sierra Maestras and the beautiful coastal road and headed back into a more industrialized area and pollution from the cars, trucks and burning of the fields.

We arrived in Manzanillo at 10:45 and cycled into the historic downtown area.

As usual a fella came up to us and asked if we needed a casa. We said we had one reserved and showed him the address. He said he would take us to the casa. When we got to the casa we knew it wasn’t the one Umberto had told us about, it wasn’t even on the same street. I had a look at the room anyway, standard casa room, bed, old air-conditioning unit, and a small bathroom. The guys that come up to us and take us to casas will get a few pesos from the casa owner for getting him the business. On this occasion we had a casa and just needed to find it.

As I was looking at the casa Ruben came past on his bike, and spoke to Ralf introducing himself as the casa owner that Umberto had told us about. Fortunately, Ruben spotted Ralf and the bikes and brought us to his casa which is lovely. Very clean, big room and nice shower. We have a terrace that we can sit out on and a kitchen area with a fridge.

Ruben was expecting us to arrive later as Tamara the casa owner in Media Luna had called him and told him we were on our way and our estimated time of arrival was about 11:30 +/-. Reuben was going to wait for us at the entrance to the Town so that he could guide us to his casa.

Once we had settled in I asked about laundry facilities, Reuben’s wife said she would do the laundry for us. It was on the line drying as we left to go for our walk around the Town.

First we had to find something to eat, I wanted spaghetti, but apparently it is in short supply, no spaghetti. We settled for a pizza which was quite good, the pizzas here have a thick doughy base, sometimes they are good other times the dough is a little undercooked. After we had eaten Ralf and I separated, I went to update the blog and check email etc. Ralf went to the bank and had a wander around.

He walked up the steps from the centre of Town and watched some young boys playing baseball on a hill. It isn’t the same as street hockey or football, when you shout car – to stop the game, you shout horse and cart and let that go around you before you restart the game.

As he went up the steps he noticed the tile work and murals of sunflowers. We are not sure of the significance of sunflowers as we have only seen one field of sunflowers today.

I love sunflowers.

Ralf went down one of the back streets and spotted this odd construction and the boys asked for a photograph.

After I had updated the blog we wandered back to the casa.

We met up with the Swiss cyclist (Eddie) again at this casa, he cycled from Pilon today and is heading to Bayamo tomorrow. We chatted to him again and he asked if we were going into the town tonight, we declined.

Manzanillo and Bayamo had an important part to play in the War of Independence. Eight kilometres outside of Manzanillo at the former Demajagua sugar mill Carlos Manuel de Cespedes began Cuba’s first war of independence. Bayamo was proclaimed the capital of the Republic in Arms in 1868. The national anthem was sung for the first time in Bayamo in 1868 and in January 1869, the citizens of Bayamo set fire to the city to prevent the Spaniards taking back the city.