Tuesday December 9, 2014

We have now been cycling for one year. We left Auckland for Opere Point and encountered some steep hills. I don’t think we have had any hills to compare to the Coromandel in New Zealand. We are both stronger, fitter and much skinnier than when we started a year ago. I am still not sure I could cycle up some of the hills in the Coromandel even now with our improved fitness.

After one year on the road we are ready for a weeks holiday, and we will book that in Santiago de Cuba.

Todays ride was a good ride but very long. We were up and out of the Casa by 7:30 pm to try and beat the heat of the day. As we left the casa so early, it was a little cool, but the sun soon came over the mountain range and it got hot quite quickly. The first part of the ride was along the coast and it was nice to have the slight tail wind pushing us along. We had to head north and over a couple of small ridges to get to Guantanamo City. Of course heading north meant we were heading into the wind again, so much for tail winds all the way to Havana. The hills were easily manageable taken at a steady pace. Ralf at one point asked where I was trying to keep my heart rate – I laughed I was just trying to get over the hill not trying to keep my heart rate low!

After we had crossed the ridges it was primarily a flat road into Guantanamo City, in shade trees.

We had to head north to get around the Guantanamo Bay, which is where the US Naval base is. Along that section of road, we couldn’t take photographs as there are military training bases and gun ranges. Ralf spotted 9 tanks and was hoping that they would be firing the guns, but they didn’t.

We got to one high point and could just about pick out the US Naval Base. There was a road to the right which took you up to the high point where you could definitely view the base. We looked at each other and the steep road up and decided we could see what we needed to see from this point.

We were stopped about 10 kms out of the city by a lady who had a casa in Guantanamo she gave us her card and when we got into the outskirts of the city we checked it out on the map and decided to take a look at it.

The casa is very nice and central. Once again we got settled in and had a wander around the downtown core. We saw a very large lady, with an interesting place to keep her cell phone – safely wedged in between her ample bosom, (photo unavailable).

Guantanamo is a very nice city with a big central square and two pedestrianized streets running down either side of the square.

At one point we stopped to look at the map and a skinny black man with dreadlocks came up to us to see if we needed help. We told him we were looking for a bank, but we had asked at the hotel and they were all closed at 3:00 and we didn’t need any help, thank-you. Augustin said No, he knew of a bank that would be open until 7:00pm, “I will take you”. Now, anywhere else we might consider twice about being guided to a bank by a skinny Rastafarian. We chatted as we walked to the bank, and when he pointed at the bank and we were crossing the street, Augustin waved at us and turned around leaving us to go into the bank. He was nowhere to be seen when we came out.

Later that evening, after we had a lovely dinner we were wandering back to the casa I hear my name being shouted – Augustin was there again. We decided to have a ‘nightcap’ and treated him to a drink as well. He never once asked for money, drinks or anything. We chatted to him for about an hour and arranged to meet tomorrow. He wants to show us photos of his friend in Austria and may be get connected to the internet. Again he hasn’t asked us to buy him an internet card, but he is such a nice fella, we will give him one of our cards.