Tuesday December 2, 2014

I woke up this morning to the sounds of my wonderful hubby singing Happy Birthday to me.

It’s my birthday today and I am determined to enjoy it.

We had breakfast at the casa and Eduardo (casa owner) gave me half a pound of Cuban coffee for a gift. Ralf has to carry it, as I have no room in the kitchen pannier to carry it and he hasn’t been carrying any food since we have been here.

We were on the road by 8:00 am, although we had a bit of a headwind to start the ride, the sun was out and it looked as though it was going to be a good days ride. We made the left turn out of Banes and the head wind turned to be a side wind with a tendency to come slightly from behind. Not a full tail wind, but neither a full side wind blowing us across the road.

The first 10 to 15 kms was a relatively good paved road, then it began to go pear-shaped or what could be described as a very bad road. I would say it was worse than the Forgotten Highway (gravel section) but not as bad as the Rimutaki Trail, due to the fact that the road was not hilly and we didn’t have to get of the bikes to push up a 15% grade as we had to on the Rimutaki Trail.

Just as we were both beginning to get fed up with the road, it became paved again and we were able to pick up speed. The last 20 kms were on a very nice paved road and rolling hills.

As I said I was determined to enjoy my day even when a Tourist car passed me and splashed the contents of a puddle over me. I did say some bad words to him and at one point because of the deteriorating road surface I could have caught up with him and smacked him up the side the head, I carried on with my ride and cursed him and hoped his wheels would fall of the car in the next pothole. Unfortunately that didn’t happen as we didn’t come across him again.

We did however, come across a cattle drive. Two men on horses directing about a dozen cows with two very disinterested dogs.

Our last turn today took us straight into the head wind. I think I might have mentioned once or twice before that I hate head winds. Usually Ralf and I take it in turns to be up front, but my lovely hubby gave me a birthday treat, he stayed up-front for the last 10 kms into Mayari.

As we came into Mayari and down a nice long hill, it began to rain. A man stepped out from underneath a tree with a sign that read Ralf and Jaquelina. This was our casa owner for the night who had come out to meet us and guide us to his house. By the time we got to his house we were absolutely soaking wet. The heavens had opened again and it poured with rain. Apparently it had been raining all day in Mayari, but not in Banes. It rained on and off all afternoon so we stayed in the casa and read the books that Eduardo had given us. I had wanted to check my email, to see if I had received any birthday emails, but that will have to wait until tomorrow.

Francisco (casa owner) asked if we would like lunch. At 2:00pm we had a full meal with chicken and rice. I had assumed that that was what on offer for dinner, but after we had eaten our fill. He asked what time we would like dinner and would fish be o.k. Two meals, but with nothing better to do in the rain, I can eat two meals.

Everyone in the casa wished me happy birthday.

Later on as we were covering the bikes and bringing the water bottles into the freezer, I spoilt their surprise. They were trying to find the song Happy Birthday on their computer and had a big birthday cake on the table waiting for me. The cake was wonderful, and we shared it with the family.

We had their personal chef cooking for us. I forgot to mention that Francis is an engineer and Lidia is a doctor, along with owning a casa that rents out two rooms.

Francis loves his music and was plugging an extra hard drive in so that I could listen to 70’s music.

Ralf played with their grandson who is 6 for a couple of hours. He got him worked up so that he would be awake for hours. We left to go to our bed at 8:45 pm.

A good day.