We have the power!

February 15, 2019

Apparently so! Last night, as you will recall, we were wondering how long the music would go on at the “love day” pool party. Well, at 12:05 am, just as we wished, the power went off! Poof! No more music, no more noise, welcome peaceful slumber. Well, almost. Some folks wanted to keep the party going and insisted on singing a Capella, but we were able to ignore that with our trusty earplugs. This is eerily similar to the night in Varadero where we wished for the power to go out at the Harley Davidson concert (which, by the way, we were actually enjoying at the time) and then suddenly the rain came and with it went the power. So, watch out world! Don’t mess with Jim and Sue’s sleep!! Lol!

After our long night we slept in a bit and didn’t show up for breakfast until about 8:30. We were ready to leave by 9:30, but had to wait an extra 10-15 minutes while someone supposedly checked the room to make sure we hadn’t stuffed one of the 3 tvs into our panniers. The woman at the check in counter got tired of waiting and sent us on our way. Darn! We should have put one in – I’m sure it would have fit somewhere!

Look at that calm water! It would have been a great day to snorkel!

The ride down from Jibacoa to Guanabo was quick and uneventful. It is funny how much easier 31 km is to do when you have a nice tailwind! We managed to average about 14 mph today as opposed to 9 when we did this same route a week or so ago! Flying along we were able to appreciate the lovely ocean views but they were spoiled by the occasional whiff of oil from the pipeline that go along the coastline here – ugh!

Heading in the right direction at least!

That is supposed to be water vapor, but I don't know, it still looks ugly

The only bad thing about a tailwind is you don't want to stop to take pretty pictures as often

We arrived in Guanabo and went to the hotel we stayed at last time, only to find the were full – boo! We resigned ourselves to having to knock on doors to find a casa (last time we did not have luck in that direction here) but we were quickly approached by one of the sometimes helpful Jineteras (female version of Jinetero). She asked if we were looking for a casa and rather than hassle with looking for one ourselves, we happily allowed her to lead us along the street to a rather large house where the owner was more than happy to rent us a room. Her set up is pretty slick, I have to say – the largest number of casa rooms I have seen. It’s kind of like a casa motel here, with each very small room side by side with the others. The room itself is tiny but efficient, managing to pack in a kitchen, bathroom and bedroom into about the same space as one of the bedrooms in our suite last night! It’s a little like the space in a trailer, so not bad at all, really. As we were settling with the owner, the Jinetera asked me for some cash for finding the space for us. Oh, right! Of course! Only problem for her was I didn’t have any small bills and was not about to give her a $50, so she ended up with some Pesos, which I’m sure was not what she was looking for. Oh well, you can’t always get what you want!

Once we settled and changed, we went for a walk into town to find a bank and get cash to last us until we leave. We have found that going into the bank has been the best solution for reliably getting money here. You do have to wait, but they have chairs and everyone is really good about looking to see who is next in line. No one budges in and it works pretty well. That done, we walked to the next store to buy some packaged nuts as a snack for the bar bags. Of course, they sold these at the shop where they also have ice cream, so we couldn’t very well leave without having that too! Once our sweet tooth had been satisfied, we walked over to the park for a little wifi time. We had been out of range for a couple of days and wanted to post at least one day of this blog up as well as check in on friends and family. Once satisfied in this direction we went for a walk on the beach, stopping to rest in the shade and watch the many families there today play in the water. Now that we have been spoiled by the beaches at Jibacoa and Varadero, the beach here doesn’t hold quite the appeal that it first did for us. Of course, there was also a lot of debris left over here from the storm that blew through, so that also took away from our enjoyment of the beach. So sad! After a time we went back to our room to catch up on some of the sleep we had missed last night.

For dinner we returned to Luna and both enjoyed yet another lovely meal here. It is a little more expensive than many restaurants, but the presentation and attention to detail, plus the variety in their menu makes it worth the extra cost, which is still much much less than what we would have spent for a meal such as this at home!

We wandered back to our room to watch a little tv before bed. Jim had been super excited to find that this tv actually had TSN as one of the channels and was really wanting to watch a bit of sports. When he first found it, before we left, there was a hockey game on, so he was expecting good things. Sadly, by the time we got around to tuning in, at first there was cycling on (oh boy, like we want to watch that!) and then soccer. But hey, its better than trying to watch a movie in Spanish! We will turn in early and hope that no one here is celebrating Valentine’s Day late. Tomorrow we are headed to Cojimar which is just across the harbour from Havana. There is a cycling centre there that we want to check out as well as taking some time to look at the fort either that day or the next morning before heading to Havana. Our time here in Cuba is quickly running out and we are both feeling a little blue about that. It has been such a wonderful adventure and has far far exceeded our expectations!

Today's ride: 31 km (19 miles)
Total: 1,653 km (1,027 miles)

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