Tuesday December 23, 2014

A really early start this morning, we had an excellent breakfast and headed out on the road with Eddie cycling with us.

We were surprised to see a cycle lane leaving Manzanillo. At one point a truck driver shouted at me to get on the cycle lane. It was a nice cool morning about 17 degrees and I, as usual lead for the first 20 minutes, once I had got my rhythm Ralf took the lead and we continued to switch every 10 minutes as is our usual routine. At one point Eddie commented on what a strong cyclist I am. I should be after one year of cycling. Both Ralf and I were feeling good, and we cycled at a steady 21 – 24kph. Eddie took the lead and our average dropped to 18-21kph. We continued to switch between the three of us for almost an hour and then Eddie dropped back. We slowed down and we told him we would be stopping in ten minutes for our hourly break. He said he needed to slow down, so we wished him well and carried on. We thought he might catch up to us again, but we didn’t see him again.

We stopped to watch a field of sugar cane being cut by hand. There were about a dozen men hacking away at the cane. They chopped the outer leaves away and then stacked the remaining cane stalk in rows. It looked like back-breaking work.

The other interesting thing we saw today was a fella making clay bricks. He makes about 30 an hour. The clay comes from the property and he was making the bricks to rebuild the kiln. He seemed to be making more than 30 an hour but that is what he said he did. He dumped the wet clay into forms, pushed the extra clay away and then carried the form to the ground where the bricks would be left to dry in the sun. Once they had dried sufficiently they were stacked in a wall, where they would then go into the kiln. This really looked like hard work.

As we were cycling along we came through a village where a woman was on the phone. Ralf laughed as she was on the phone and shouting at a guy down the street. \”Why does she need a phone?\” he said. It is one of the things that we have noticed about the Cubans they shout a lot. Usually to get someone’s attention and then they continue to shout at each other. For Ralf and I, who like our peace and quiet and don’t like people shouting it can be a bit annoying.

Then it happened – Ralf became Cuban. We had arrived at the Casa and were sitting on the balcony when Ralf spotted Eddie cycling into the square. All of a sudden Ralf leaps up and shouts over the balcony – “Eddie”, “Eddie”. I couldn’t believe my quiet husband yawping like a Cuban over the balcony – I couldn’t stop laughing at him.

After our shower we had our usual walk around the Town. Bayamo is a lovely Town, clean and not one person asked us for money. Bayamo was the second city to be founded in Cuba by the Spanish in 1513.

As we walked the back streets back to the casa, Ralf spotted this lovely old fella. Ralf will often take photos of these people when they are not looking. However, he didn’t want to offend this old fella and asked for permission. He said yes, but then instead of getting the fella as he had first spotted him, the old fella got quite chatty and asked where we were from and said that Canada was a good place but very cold. He got quite animated, which isn’t the photo that Ralf wanted but he did have a lovely face.

We ate dinner at the casa and then chatted to the other tourist who was from Norway.