Wednesday December 3, 2014

No rain as we left Mayari, but Lidia said it was forecast for more rain. The route today was beautiful. Of course stunning scenery also means hills, I am not quite sure why that happens but it does.

It was a hilly ride. We spotted a lone touring cyclists coming down the hill. We chatted to her for a short while. She is actually with a group of German cyclists that is part of an organized tour and supported by a bus. We saw the rest of the group a little later on. She confirmed that the Moa to Baracoa road is rough, she said about 30 kilometres was good the rest was very hard. She mentioned that you had to have your brakes on going downhill, because of the rough road and potholes.

We avoided the rain today, although it had rained in Sagau de Tanamo prior to us arriving, the roads were still wet and dirty. The bikes got a bit dirty, but I will give them a good clean again in Baracoa when we have our next rest days. Moa to Baracoa is going to be a tough ride, both in distance, hills and in road surface. We wanted to split the 92 kilometres from Mayari to Moa into two days. Sagua is not quite the mid-point but it is the only place with a casa between Mayari and Moa. We organized our stuff and headed out for our usual exploratory walk into town and to get some lunch.

We have a lovely view from the casa, if only we could cut a few branches of the tree that is blocking the spectacular view of the valley and hills surrounding the Town. The casa has three floors with three generations living in it.We are on the top floor, with 3 rooms to rent and one large sitting area.

Sagua is a sorry looking town. A couple of stores, but the majority of the stores are the older government stores that provide the basics for the population. These are warehouse style buildings which provide household goods and food stuffs.

I went into the Telephone office hoping to check my email. No internet service at all in Sagua.

The power went of at 4:30 pm. It was back on pretty quickly about 30 minutes I think.

We ate in the casa tonight a typical Cuban meal of rice and chicken, lots of food but that is fine we were both hungry.

After dinner we were sitting reading in the living room when the casa owner came up and said one of the other rooms had been rented and did we mind. We realized by the way she asked that this was an “hourly” rental not tourists looking to stay the night. She seemed quite embarrassed by the whole situation, we pretended not to know what she was talking about and said it would be no problem.

Tomorrow will be a short ride.