Monday January 5, 2015

A very early start this morning.With a combination of maps, we had worked out that our distance would be about 90 ks. We asked for an early breakfast and we were on the road by 7:00am. It had just got light and was still nice and cool. We had been told by the lady in the InfoTur office that there was a new road and to take it towards Havana. We found that road quite easily and followed a very straight, well paved, flat road for 34kms. At the turn to Playa Giron the sign indicated it was 37kms to Playa Giron. The new road had cut 21kms from our route – yippee. Or so we thought, not quite although the sign said 37kms it was actually 45kms. Even so the new road did knock 11kms off what we thought we were going to have to cycle today. It is always nice to do less than you think you have to as opposed to doing more which is often the case in Cuba.

The route was quite nice for the most part. We cycled through an area of intensive farming. We figured that most of the food produced in this area would be for Havana.

We made good time to Playa Giron and arrived at just after 11:00 am. There was no road sign to indicate we had arrived in Playa Giron only a proliferation of casas. We went to the casa the InfoTur lady had recommended. Unfortunately she was full but showed us to another casa down the road. Our room is small but has windows with screens, we may actually get some fresh air into the room tonight and not have to have a noisy air-conditioning unit on all night.

The casa has an animal in a cage in the garden. It is called a Jutia it is pronounced hutia. It looks like a big groundhog, with teeth like a beaver and a long rat like tail. This thing apparently is good to eat! We are having fish tonight!

Our afternoon of exploration showed Playa Giron to be a bit of a ghost town. There is a beach, an all inclusive hotel, a small commercial centre next to the hotel and a couple of other restaurants. We tried to get food at the beach bar, no cheese therefore no sandwiches or pizzas or spaghetti. We walked through the hotel to the small commercial area. Again no cheese. We had a fried chicken legs with rice for lunch, that was just about it on the menu, they did have pork. The exchange office had no money only Cuban pesos. Once again the very poor excuse of – this is Cuba, is wearing a little thin.

This is a dead town. The fella at the beach bar explained that there had been no rebuilding after the hurricane and they expected more tourists to come to this area, but they never came. The only reason to come to this area is to see the Bay of Pigs, a military museum and the Zapata Swamp, an area of exceptional beauty (according to the tourist office). We will see that tomorrow.

We were going to have two lazy days following today (35 kms each day), but it looks as though we may have to push on tomorrow to Jagua Grande as there is no bank in Playa Larga and we need money.