Friday January 23, 2014

A very early start for our flights to the US. We left the casa at 12:45 am and arrived at the airport at 1:30 am.

First hiccup of the day, we discovered on arrival at the airport that the airport doesn’t open until 3:00 am and we had to wait outside of the terminal. At 2:30 the doors opened and we were allowed to line-up inside.

We checked our bags and bikes in and this was the second hiccup of the day. We knew we had to pay $50.00 each for the bikes, but rather than get 100 CUC from the bank we decided to pay by credit card at the airport. There seemed to be an issue with using a credit card, Ralf asked about an exchange office. Yes there was one, but although the light was on, there was nobody home. The ATM wasn’t working. Ralf returned to the counter and explained the situation. The two check-in guys discussed for a while and then told us to carry on through passport control we didn’t have to pay. We figured we would pay in Grand Cayman, or our bikes wouldn’t show up – but we didn’t and the bikes did show up – bonus.

The third hiccup was when we got to passport control. Passport control officer checked our visas and our passports. We had checked at an immigration police office early on in our trip that we did indeed have a 3 month visa. Yes no problems. However, it turns out it is not 3 months it is 90 days. We were over our visa by 2 days! A senior officer was called and he took both of our passports away. After about 15 minutes he came back and said we could go through.

It turns out we could have got a fine for being over our visa. A young American was also over his visa by 5 hours and had to pay a fine of CUC 30.00. I am not sure why we weren’t fined, maybe it is because we are nice Canadians.

On arrival at Grand Cayman we picked up our bikes and luggage and then had to go through customs and recheck in. No problems there except the baggage handler was complaining about the size of Ralf’s bike box. The check-in counter said that because Cayman Airways had accepted the box for transit through to Tampa they had to accept it. If we had originated in Grand Cayman she could have refused the box. I am glad she didn’t know that we hadn’t paid for the bikes!!

Of course while waiting 5 hours at the Grand Cayman airport they have recouped some of the cost. It is incredibly expensive here. Breakfast was $25.00 and a snack and coffee was $12.95. The plane was delayed by 45 minutes.

Our final bit of excitement was a fire alarm went of in the airport departure lounge and we had to evacuate the building!

We arrived in Tampa, Florida at 2:00 pm and Gail and Bob were waiting for us. We had to take my bike out of the box for both bikes to fit in the car. We got back to their place and had a shower and something to eat. Then we were in bed by 7:30pm.

Sunday January 18, 2015 to Thursday January 22, 2015

We spent Sunday as a relaxing day. Even though I had spent most of Saturday in bed due to a migraine. We still relaxed on Sunday. I spent time writing the blog and picking pictures. Ralf has taken lots of pictures of buildings, people and general street life in Havana. He also took single pictures of all of the Buddy Bears. There was a lot to go through to pick the ones I needed for the blog.

I have included a lot of photos in this last blog of Cuba and Havana.

I have included a couple of galleries of faces and street life. Both of us love watching people and Ralf is getting good at taking candid photos of people. Sometimes he asks for permission and other times he sneaks a photo.

The street life in Havana is varied and busy.

I have added a gallery of photos depicting the good, bad and ugly side of Havana.

On Sunday night a group of young Argentinian guys stayed at the casa. A couple of them spoke very good English so we were able to have a good chat with them and a laugh. They had a bottle of Mexican liquor which was similar to tequila. They were very generous in sharing it – it was very strong, maybe it was the dead worm that gave it the taste!

There were four guys sharing two rooms. One room has a double bed and a single bed and the other room has a double bed. They were going to draw cards to choose who got the best bed/room. I volunteered to deal the cards. The first person dealt a King could choose which room or bed he slept in, the second person dealt a King would have the second choice, it was a no-brainer to realize the remaining two guys would be sleeping together in the remaining double bed. I shuffled the cards and it was a coincidence but we got to the last ten cards before a King was dealt. The cheering that ensued when the first King was dealt was hilarious. The guy on the far right choose the double bed in the separate room, with the other three guys sharing the other room. The guy next to Ralf had the single bed.

The next day they rented bikes and cycled around the city. We were walking through Centro Havana when they showed up on the rented bikes.

The highlight of Monday was visiting the Bacardi building. It was built in 1936 to house the headquarters of the Bacardi Rum Company. The building still has the Bat symbol on the very top. As Ralf was taking photos of the outside I walked up to the main entrance to see inside. The security guy invited me in and told me we could go to the top for 1 CUC per person. We paid our 2 CUCs and took the lift to the 7^th floor and then walked up the stairs and the spiral staircase to the viewing platform. What a great view of the city. We could see out to the ocean and the density of the old city. We could see the skyline of New Havana and the fort to the west. I did notice that apart from the forts you could not see a lot of greenery. Unlike other city’s high points there were no pretty terracotta roofs, just dull grey buildings covered in black mold and decaying concrete.

Tuesday we took the open top bus for a tour of Havana. The tour took 1 hour and 45 minutes and at the Rum Museum you got a free Mojito. I am sure the museum was expecting you to take the tour for 7 CUC each, but we walked past the reception and straight up to the bar where they were making the mojitos. Thank you very much a great tour and a mojito for 5 CUC each.

As we were leaving the rum museum we spotted a couple of Dutch people who were about to embark on their cycling tour of Cuba. Heading for Vinales and then back to Havana and then taking the bus to Trinidad and cycling back to Havana. We told them cycling from Trinidad to Havana was the best way because of the tail winds. They had a really neat kick-stand for the front wheel.

We continued our relaxing day by visiting some of the art galleries. We chatted to a gallery owner about the Mona Lisa painting and married life. He has been married for 58 years and said they were like one tree with roots that go very deep together. He almost made Ralf and I cry, when he said he hopes that he dies first as he couldn’t imagine life without his wife. She was his life, his light and his strength. He showed us a photo of them together.

 Maria invited us to have dinner with her and her family. Adriana (the daughter-in-law to be) cooked the dinner and we had a lovely evening with them. It was primarily to thank Ralf for his work as the “National Geographic” photographer!

For the most part we have enjoyed cycling Cuba. Ralf and I have been talking about our experiences and are

Sunday January 11, 2015 to Saturday 17 January, 2015

A week in Havana. The first couple of days in Havana we spent preparing for our next leg of the Grand Adventure. We needed to book flights, clean our bikes and panniers.

It took us two days to book flights, confirm and print the e-tickets. Lindsay at Flight Centre, Barrie did all the hard work for us. Confirming the cost of the bikes and baggage allowances for us and getting the best deal. We spent two days going backwards and forwards with emails. It probably would have only taken us an hour anywhere else in the world, but due to the limitations of the internet in Cuba, it took us two days. Thanks Lindsay for all your hard work.

The bikes took us four hours to clean from front to back – rubber to rubber. We are not sure how strict the Americans are going to be when we bring the bikes in. We knew the Aussies were going to be very strict when we landed there from New Zealand. To be on the safe side we scrubbed the tyres, and cleaned the bikes from top to bottom and front to back. They look like new bikes, apart from all the dings and scrapes they have received over the last year.

After two days of preparing for the next leg, we were able to explore old Havana.

Obispo Street is one of the main tourist shopping areas, Obispo leads on to the main square of Plaza de Armas, then by walking around the Plaza, you can walk along the waterfront which leads to San Francisco de Assis and back up Muralla Street brings you to the Plaza Viaje. The whole area is very compact and you can quite easily “do” Old Havana in a couple of days or like us, you can take your time and go down the little side streets and see market stall holders, find quiet little parks and church sanctuaries, even a Jewish menorah in a park.

There has been a lot of investment in the main tourist area leading from the water, west to Cuba Street and north to Obispo Street.

We spent a day investigating the museums and churches along these streets. A lot of the old Spanish Colonial houses have been converted to museums.

We followed Obispo Street to the end, and found a street market selling books and coins. We spent an hour or so wandering around the market and then headed back to the casa. There is also a fort at the bottom of the street and the water leading out to the Ocean. We saw a very large ship heading down the narrow straits. It seemed to be moving quite fast, but slowed down before it got to the mouth of the harbor.

Walking along Obispo we noticed it was moving day. They were lowering various pieces of furniture from the third storey down to the street. There were no safety barriers to prevent people from walking up and down the street underneath where these large pieces of furniture were being lowered to the street.

We spent one day going over the bay to the Fort and lighthouse located in the Casa Blanca district.

We took the ferry over the bay which was supposed to be one peso each. The ferry master wanted one CUC each, Ralf gave him one peso each, he let us on with no argument. This day was a little disappointing for us, as there was dual pricing for everything. To visit inside Che Guevara’s house, the fort and the lighthouse would have cost 6 pesos for Cubans and 6 CUC for foreigners for each building – this is a 240% mark-up.

I would never complain that residents get a deal but to be charged 240 x the price for being a foreigner is a little excessive. This is the problem with the dual currency. Ralf commented that most people would not have noticed the difference because of the way it is shown on the boards, unless you spotted the MN next to the Cubans price and CUC next to foreigner, you would assume that the top price was in Spanish and the other in English.

We decided not to go inside the buildings, as we could walk the grounds for free. However, we had decided to visit the fort back in Old Havana and see the exhibits, that was only 3 CUC each. It was a maritime museum.

One of the issues we find annoying is that the “security” at these museums and buildings follow you around giving you all sorts of information. Which is very nice, then they give you a sob story of having three grandchildren to look after and could you give them some money.

While we were at the fort and lighthouse we met a young Canadian cyclist. He was going to go to Vinales but had been told, it was dangerous to cycle in Cuba. We told him what we had done and told him about the cars and trucks giving you plenty of room even if they often don’t give each other much room. We suggested meeting later so that we could show him the route we took and give him some of the casa addresses we had stayed at.

We met later at the Plaza San Francisco where the bears were located. His family were originally from Egypt and he liked the representation of Egypt. I think he appreciated the help we were able to give him. He was going to be using the same maps as we used, so he should be o.k.

We spent some time in the Plaza San Francisco where bears were being unloaded for an exhibition called the United Buddy Bears. We spoke to the originator of the idea and the organizer. The bears represent the Art of Tolerance. “Each bear shows the individual design created by different artists on behalf of their native countries. The international artists’ different styles are joined together in one work of art, spreading zest for life”.

The Buddy Bears stand together “hand in hand”, symbolizing the future vision of a peaceful world. Each bear stands for the people of the different countries and their culture, yet not for political systems.

“We have to get to know each other better…, it makes us understand one another better, trust each other more, and live together more peacefully”.

On Thursday we went back to the Square after all the Bears had been positioned. Ralf spent a couple of hours taking photos of all the bears. I wandered around and listened to the comments of people who were looking at the bears. Most people were very disappointed in the Canadian bear. When we were speaking to the organizer he indicated that the artist wanted to represent Canada in pixels and if you look hard enough you can see the different regions. Apparently you have to stand back from the bear to see this. Ralf and I and a number of other Canadians commented you would have to stand on the other side of the harbor to may be see this vision. Of course English tourists commented that their bear was a little bit boring and didn’t like the east meets west slogan, or the fact that the bear was “wearing” the flag like a sari and with a hijab.

All the Cubans loved their bear.The gallery below represents the bears of the countries that we have visited up to date on the Grand Adventure. I have included the US, as we did fly through LA to get to New Zealand and that is our next stop.

It is a great display and it was fun to see the reaction of the kids hugging the bears.

One of the other things we have enjoyed seeing as we walked the Old City are the street artists. We have seen them in other countries and really enjoy watching them. Whenever you give them money, they often change their position. This one gave Ralf a piece of paper which gave a quote from Lao-Tzu (Chinese philosopher)

“He who dominates others is strong; he who masters himself is mighty”.

This one gave me an imaginary rose, he gave the kids a candy. I would rather have had the candy!

In Cathedral Square there were a lot of artists painting the cathedral and the buildings in the square. This group were all painting water colours.

It has been over three months since we were in Spain and I had my haircut. I thought I could put up with the “wings” until we got to the US, but no, it was driving me crazy. Now this was going to be a risky affair. I haven’t seen a Cuban woman with short hair, how would they deal with my mop and the fact that my Spanish does not extend to “I have this odd whirl of hair happening at the back, it can be difficult to cut”. I am not sure how I managed in Madrid, but I thought this might be a different experience. It was. I sat in the chair and she just started cutting. No questions as to how short or how I wanted it cut, just cutting away. I stopped her at one point because she wasn’t using scissors per se,she was using a kind of pinking shears and definitely not cutting enough of. Anyway, I told her how short I wanted it around my ears and my fringe and let her have at it. For $5.00 I wasn’t going to complain too much. It doesn’t look too bad, (from the front), fortunately my hair does grow quickly. Ralf also got his hair trimmed and beard trimmed, his looks really good.

The other thing we needed to get done was to get our cycling sandals and my off-bike sandals repaired. The soles of myoff-bike sandals were flapping in the wind and needed to be glued. I went to a little hole in the wall Cuban cobbler and he glued the soles back on and then sewed them. For $3.00, the soles won’t come away from the sandal for a long time. The only problem is I can feel where he did the sewing, I thought it might rub on my feet, but after a day of walking around, it doesn’t rub at all, great job. I definitelydo not need to spend money on new sandals in Florida. He couldn’t sew the cycling sandals as he doesn’t have a machine. The sewing on my shoes was done by hand.

The funny thing was, as I was waiting for my shoes to be sewn, I noticed the cobblers shoes desperately needed some work done on them. I pointed this out to him, he laughed and said he works on shoes all day, he doesn’t have time to do his own.

We took the cycling sandals to another cobbler. About $2.01 for bothpairs of shoes, again I can feel where he sewed them, I am not sure this fella did as good a job on my shoes as he did on Ralf’s. We will have to see when we start cycling again.

The food and restaurants have been a bit of a hit and miss affair. Fortunately we have found one little restaurant down the street from the casa, which has consistently good food and good service. The wine is ridiculously expensive, but I asked if I can bring my own bottle and he said I could.

We stopped at a churros stand and bought some churros and then went down to the chocolate museum and had hot chocolate. Mmmm hot chocolate and churros. Of course the next day I woke up with a migraine. Nothing to do with the rich chocolate, it was a rainy overcast day! Ralf worked on the pictures of the Buddy Bears.

Ralf worked on some photos, but was distracted by Maria and Adriana. He volunteered to take some photos of the casa for Maria and the website that Maria uses for online bookings. Maria now thinks Ralf should be selling his photos to National Geographic as he is such a good photographer!

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.

Friday January 9, 2015

An interesting start to the day. We chatted to our host at the casa. He had some interesting insight into the proliferation of casas, business in general and the Cuban people thinking that America is going to solve all of their problems. His thoughts werethat Cubans need to work and be paid well for that work. Then they can afford the things that they want. His opinion was that most Cubans think that the Americans will give them the products for free, they do not realize how much things cost and how many hours you have to work to get the stuff that they see in the stores.He said people in the US have topay taxes, rent, gas, electricity, hydro etc. nothing is for free.This is an amazing insight from a Cuban. Most Cubans do not realize how much things cost in the rest of the world and how hard we have to work to get those things.

He told us about the amount of theft that happens in the tourist areas, not from tourists but from the hotels. For example, the hotel may have been given 3 different cheeses to serve to their guests, one cheese gets put out for the guest, the remaining cheeses disappear – the chefs take it, the waiters take it and they give some to the guards so that they can have their share as well. We had noticed at Brisas the amount of alcohol that was being taken. Idalia our host said it is part of the culture. The government steals from the people – one example was a hotel consortium (e.g. Spanish/Cuban) the Spanish pay the workers CUC 500 per month, but it has to go through the government. In turn the government pays the workers 20 CUC per month. The same thing happens to the Doctors and Nurses who are working on the missions. The country where they are working pays the Cuban government and they pay the Doctor or Nurse about one-third of what the foreign government has paid the Cuban government.Why do they go on missions, because even with the Cuban government cuts they can earn more than what they would earn in Cuba.

Idalia said things have to change but it will be very difficult. Fifty-six years will not change overnight, it has to be gradual and well thought out. This doesn’t happen in Cuba. He said that Cuba gave Venezula the technology for a new chocolate factory. Why? We need the money for our chocolate and for our factories, just so that we can say Cuba had the technology.

It was a very interesting conversation and consequently we did not get out on the road until 8:45. That was o.k. the weather was not too windy and not very hot and we had a short day ahead of us.

We stopped at the Mirador at the bridge and then carried on to Jibacoa.

We are staying at the same casa as we did on the way out. They recognized us, which is always nice.

There isn’t much to see in this area so we walked up to the restaurant and had lunch. We had a great chat to the waitress. She was a very intelligent woman whose profession was a music teacher. I asked her why she was waitressing if she was a music teacher. She explained that after her university she did a one year placement at a school where she was told to teach guitar. The school didn’t have a guitar, so how could she teach guitar. She asked for a guitar, she sent requests to the education department in Havana for a guitar and didn’t get one. At the end of her placement because she hadn’t taught guitar and had complained too many times about not having a guitar, she got an R in her review which meant that she would get less money during the next term. She decided to quit at which point her teaching certificate was taken away from her and her University qualifications. She is not allowed to teach anymore. She can only get it back if she goes back to school and completes the whole course again!

If you say too much the government can still shut you up. She is working in a restaurant and as she said is better off. She works 15 days a month for twice the salary that the government paid her, and she gets tips.

We met up with the German couple that we had briefly seen in Las Mulas (the campground near Santiago de Cuba). We chatted to them throughout the evening and went down to a little bar for pina coladas with them. As we walked back we could see lightening lighting up the skies around the coast.

On our penultimate day of riding we had some interesting conversations today.

Thursday January 8, 2015

A really early start, we were on the road before the sun came up. We had our lights on and I almost wore my yellow windbreaker as it was a little chilly. This is the first time that my feet have been cold in 3 months!

Todays route we passed large orchards and orange groves and only a few sugar canes. The farms were highly mechanized and some of the farming communities had apartment blocks to house the workers.

The ride was relatively flat until we went through Coliseo then we had some small hills to climb. The worst part of todays ride was the wind. We started of with a head wind, which turned to a side wind and eventually for a short time a tail wind and then back to a side wind. It was a windy day and was constant, we had about 5 kms of tail wind which wasn’t very much over an 89 kms day. Even though we had a constant wind we still made good time and it was nice scenery.

As we came into Matanzas we noticed the wind on the water, there were a lot of white caps and the waves were quite large.

We found the casa, that we were going to stay in on the way out to Varadero (2 months ago). Fortunately this time it had vacancies and we settled into a nice room with the best shower that we have had in Cuba.   It is strange the things that we now get excited about – yeah hot water, yeah water pressure.

We wandered down to the centre of Town which was a couple of kilometres away. I checked the email. Because we are a week ahead of schedule I had to change the arrangements at the casa in Havana. Not a problem we can stay there on Saturday for five days. We have to decide whether to stay there until our flight or find a cheaper hotel for the remaining week in Havana. We have been easily sticking to our budget in Cuba, we don’t want to blow it in the last two weeks.

Wednesday January 7, 2015

We were served a very large breakfast this morning, which consisted mainly of fried food – fried eggs, fried bacon, fried French toast – I am really getting fed up of everything fried. We did get a nice plate of fruit and some bread. Fortunately we still have peanut butter which I spread on the bread and it tasted really good. Because it was a short ride I knew I could survive on the fruit and the peanut butter for todays ride.

We left the casa at 8:00 am and headed up through the Zapata National Park to Jaguey Grande.

We passed the crocodile breeding farm and spotted about four crocs, inside the fence I am pleased to say. It was a very swampy area for about 20 kms, I kept my eyes open for crocs, as I wasn’t sure how secure the breeding area was and there might have been a few crocs swimming around the swamp.

Along this road there were memorials to the fallen soldiers of the Bay of Pigs failed invasion. We stopped in Australia to see the Museum but it was closed due to the building falling down. No hurricane damage, due to old age and poor maintenance. We couldn’t find out any more of the history of the Bay of Pigs which was a bit of a shame.

As we were looking for the museum in Australia (the name of the Town) a young man (Kenny) asked if we needed help, Kenny spoke very good English. We told him we were looking for the museum, he asked where we were headed after that. We told him it was a short day for us and we were planning on staying in Jaguey Grande. He asked if we had a casa and if not he had an Aunt who had a casa and he would take us. We were only three kms from Jaguey so we said he could take us to the casa.

When we got to the casa, his Aunt wasn’t there so we cycled into the downtown for a coffee. While we were in the downtown area Kenny’s Aunt came up to us. She was heading back to the casa so we followed her and Kenny home. While she prepared the room we chatted with Kenny. He had just finished University, studying languages, and was working at the hotel as a guide on a 6 month contract. He said the hotel wasn’t very busy and sometimes he was able to get additional work as a guide for independent tourists. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do after his contract was up. We said there wasn’t much work in Cuba, we had seen a lot of unemployment. He said that there was a lot of work available in Cuba, especially in the countryside on farms, but in his opinion Cubans were lazy and didn’t want to work on farms, they wanted to make easy money. He said that he had gone to University to study and wanted to get a good job, but after the contract was finished he might have to work in a bar or as a waiter.

I felt very sorry for him as I felt he had a lot of potential, but nowhere to go with it.

After he had left we settled into the casa, usual routine of showering, garmins, rinsing cycling gear etc we then took a bici taxi the 2 kms back into the downtown at a cost of 10 pesos (.30 cents) to have lunch. We had a really good pizza.

I am trying to get flights booked to the US and I am working with Flight Centre in Barrie to book flights from Cuba with the bikes. I had to email the casa in Havana for the dimensions of the boxes, then email Flight Centre again. Now I have to wait for there response, as to how much the bikes will cost on two different flights. One of the options includes flying to Toronto and then onto to Tampa, the other option is to fly to Grand Cayman and then onto Tampa. It all depends on the costs of the bikes as to which works out cheaper. At the moment it is looking like the Grand Cayman flight is the best option.

We will be staying a few nights with Gail and Bob at their winter place in Florida. I used to work with Gail at Meridian, I am really looking forward to seeing her and having a good chat.

Dinner was at the casa as it was too far to go back into the downtown area to find a restaurant. It was very good and not too much.

Early night as we have a long day tomorrow.

Tuesday January 6, 2015

Happy Birthday Adam.

It was a short ride in kilometres but a hard climbing day – we climbed a total of 11 metres!! Lol. It was very flat, but the road was rough most of the way.

We stopped to chat to two Brits who were here for three weeks and trying to get as much done as possible. After we had told them what we were doing, one asked if we were getting on with each other. We answered truthfully that for the most part we got on but there have been occasions, when we need our own space. That is why we don’t ride a tandem. He commented that they had only been cycling for three weeks and were doubting their friendship. They seemed to be getting on well today.

As we were coming into Playa Larga we met two more touring cyclists, this time from British Columbia. They had cycled the 105 kms from Varadero to Playa Larga and were having an easy day today cycling to Playa Giron. They were travelling really light, we weren’t even sure they were touring when we first saw them, they only had one pannier each carried on the back carrier. They had skinny road bikes.

We arrived in Playa Larga at 10:30 and settled into the casa. We looked at different options for our route going in to Havana. Tomorrow we will do another short day to Jaguey Grande with a stop in Australia to see the museum of the Bay of Pigs. We may have a long day after that, it will depend what the casa owner in Jaguey Grande can tell us about casas heading towards Havana.

After we found somewhere to eat (a little hole in the wall cafeteria) I updated the blog and checked on the Southern Tier route. It is about 3,000 miles (4,810 kms), about 4 months or so. I think I can order the maps without any problems, when we are in Havana I will order them.

Ralf went for a ride around the Town. It has about 48 casa, in a very small town. He discovered a nice restaurant, where we could have had dinner for less money than what we will pay in the casa but we had already told the casa owner we would eat here.

Monday January 5, 2015

A very early start this morning.With a combination of maps, we had worked out that our distance would be about 90 ks. We asked for an early breakfast and we were on the road by 7:00am. It had just got light and was still nice and cool. We had been told by the lady in the InfoTur office that there was a new road and to take it towards Havana. We found that road quite easily and followed a very straight, well paved, flat road for 34kms. At the turn to Playa Giron the sign indicated it was 37kms to Playa Giron. The new road had cut 21kms from our route – yippee. Or so we thought, not quite although the sign said 37kms it was actually 45kms. Even so the new road did knock 11kms off what we thought we were going to have to cycle today. It is always nice to do less than you think you have to as opposed to doing more which is often the case in Cuba.

The route was quite nice for the most part. We cycled through an area of intensive farming. We figured that most of the food produced in this area would be for Havana.

We made good time to Playa Giron and arrived at just after 11:00 am. There was no road sign to indicate we had arrived in Playa Giron only a proliferation of casas. We went to the casa the InfoTur lady had recommended. Unfortunately she was full but showed us to another casa down the road. Our room is small but has windows with screens, we may actually get some fresh air into the room tonight and not have to have a noisy air-conditioning unit on all night.

The casa has an animal in a cage in the garden. It is called a Jutia it is pronounced hutia. It looks like a big groundhog, with teeth like a beaver and a long rat like tail. This thing apparently is good to eat! We are having fish tonight!

Our afternoon of exploration showed Playa Giron to be a bit of a ghost town. There is a beach, an all inclusive hotel, a small commercial centre next to the hotel and a couple of other restaurants. We tried to get food at the beach bar, no cheese therefore no sandwiches or pizzas or spaghetti. We walked through the hotel to the small commercial area. Again no cheese. We had a fried chicken legs with rice for lunch, that was just about it on the menu, they did have pork. The exchange office had no money only Cuban pesos. Once again the very poor excuse of – this is Cuba, is wearing a little thin.

This is a dead town. The fella at the beach bar explained that there had been no rebuilding after the hurricane and they expected more tourists to come to this area, but they never came. The only reason to come to this area is to see the Bay of Pigs, a military museum and the Zapata Swamp, an area of exceptional beauty (according to the tourist office). We will see that tomorrow.

We were going to have two lazy days following today (35 kms each day), but it looks as though we may have to push on tomorrow to Jagua Grande as there is no bank in Playa Larga and we need money.

Sunday January 4, 2015

A lovely rest day exploring Cienfuegos. Yesterday we had explored the downtown boulevard and Jose Marti Square, which Ralf refers to as Joe Marti. Today we walked down Avenida 37 to Punta Gorda. It was a lovely relaxing walk although it did get very hot. At one point I thought I was melting, I was perspiring so much.

The main purpose of the walk was to find the Sculpture Park. The sculptures were made by 17 artists from different generations and different parts of the country, using different materials. It was nice to see that each sculpture had a plaque that had the name of the piece, the artist and the year it was created.

Before the sculpture park we passed the Azul Palacio (Blue Palace), which is now a hotel. The blue palace has seven rooms, I am guessing there is no place to store our bikes, so I don’t think we will stay there.

The Blue Palace is located next to what was the Yacht Club of Cienfuegos. The renamed Club Cienfuegos houses a bar and amusement park.

We noticed a large catamaran with GAdventures on its sail, by the small dock and I asked where it was heading for. It was waiting for its guests to arrive and then was going to sail to Cayo Largo (Cuba), stopping for diving, snorkeling, and fishing along the Cays of the Cayo Largo area. Their guests were primarily from Canada and would be on board for a week. That sounded like a nice weeks vacation, except what happens if you don’t like your fellow guests, you have no way of escaping them.GAdventures is a Canadian company which we used when we cycled Cuba with an organized tour a few years ago.

After the sculpture park we carried on walking down towards the end of the road and the Punta Gorda area. This area is a peninsula which was a very well to do area before the revolution, it became mainly a summer area for many people. Large houses with a view of the sea from both sides of the houses.

We arrived at the Palacio de Valle almost by accident. Eleana our casa host had told us about this place, but with our limited Spanish did not know exactly where it was. It looks like a Moorish/Moroccan influenced house. It was finished in 1917 at a cost of one and a half million pesos. You pay 2 CUC per person to enter the building and a drink on the terrassa is included in the entrance fee.

Our final walk was to the very end of the Punta Gorda peninsula. It must have been a very grand area in its day. Most of the houses are now casa particulars. This one house is empty, I wondered what the price of it would be and how you could renovate it to its original glory.

We treated ourselves to a bicycle taxi back to Joe Marti Square. I felt a little guilty at making the poor guy pedal for us, but we were hot and tired.

We had lunch at the same restaurant as yesterday and chatted to an American who had a yacht in the harbor. Rich had stopped working about nine years ago and had been sailing the Caribbean since then. His plan was to head across the Atlantic next year to the Mediterranean. We talked about Schengen and he will encounter the same problem as Ralf did. We told him that Turkey, Cyprus and the UK is not part of Schengen. This might help him a little with his planning. Rich was a really nice guy and very interesting to talk to. We chatted about Cuba and the changes that we have noticed, but also what might happen with improved relations with the US. We agreed that there were going to be many changes some good and some bad over the next few years. We also chatted about the differences between our trip and his trip. A lot more things to go wrong on a boat than on a bicycle.

After lunch I updated the blog and Ralf went on the hunt for water. Most of the stores were closed, but my hunter/gather managed to get a 5litre bottle before the store closed.