Saturday, January 10, 2015

I think I have forgotten two birthdays – Happy Birthday Mark and Happy Birthday Victoria.

We woke up in the night to more thunderstorms, the storms had passed through by the time we got up, but the skies were grey and heavy with rain.

Although, by the time we left the casa at 7:00 we could see some blue skies. However, we followed the rain clouds to Havana and caught up with them, the heavens opened and we got wet.

It wasn’t too bad, but it was a shame that our last day of cycling in Cuba was dull and overcast. We can’t complain though as the last time it rained was when we cycled from Holguin in November.

The coastal route from Matanzas to Havana is a dual carriageway all the way.

It can be a busy road, but as usual the trucks and cars always gave us plenty of room.  There is quite a bit of industry along the road.

Coming into the City was busier and the road were very wet and we got wetter and dirty with the spray coming from the roads. Some of the roads were flooded coming into Havana and we watched the buses and vehicles fording through the water.

We arrived at Maria’s casa and she welcomed us with big hugs. We have the room with air-conditioning and a fan, it is small but cosy.

Jesus wanted to clean our bikes for us, but we told him we had to clean them very thoroughly tomorrow, he is going to let us use the pressure hose tomorrow. It´s not often that you get offers from Jesus to clean your bikes!  However, we did get a bucket and wash our legs outside so we didn’t fill the shower with grit and dirt.

However, Jesus did take the flag from Ralf´s bike.  It is against Cubans sensibility to fly a dirty flag. It is for Ralf as well, but he got tar on it on one road and it won’t come clean. That is o.k. we have a clean flag for the U.S.

After we had settled in and showered I went to check on the email and find out about booking flights. Ralf cleaned the panniers and covers.