April 13, 2011
Apr 13 - Happy Birthday Dad: A rest day in San Diego de los Banos
El Mirador Hotel, #1, CUC$30
AS YESTERDAY, when MA's alarm went off I did not even hear it. Being a rest day it did not really matter since we had nowhere to go in particular. My body was fatigued from yesterday.
We were down for breakfast in the same place as yesterday's supper - this time with views to the west of town and mountains to the northweest - I think toward tomorrow's route.
We each had a tortilla con jamon y queso with flavourless papaya juice until I spiked mine with some sugar. Then it was great, albeit thick.
Before it got too hot we headed out for a walk through the town. As the guide mentions, it is a town that is past its glory though it feels not. Poor houses. A few random tiendas and hotels (for Cubans only) and numerous garden patches with tomatoes, onions, garlic, banana, squash, plus mango trees everywhere though the mangoes themselves are not yet in season. Some have fallen around the base of the trees but we see that even these ones are very very green and hard.
At one point we were stopped by a Cuban in his twenties or thirties. When we told him we were from Canada he told us that he listens to Radio Canada International at night (basically, the international broadcasts of CBC). Then he invited us in to see his collection of Canadian postcards. He gave us his address and asked for ours.
We said our good-byes and continued our stroll around town but the heat was getting intense so we returned to our hotel. MA came right back to the hotel but I wandered around the town by the river where I snapped a few pictures of the bridge which led to the river's edge but had no span across the river. Adjacent to the edge of the dropoff was a small shelter in which a oung man was running sugar cane through a press. He was selling glasses of the sugary juice to many of the locals. He was happy to let me photograph his work. I also wandered by the bath house building from which I could smell the sulphur of the springs. I had not heard great things about the baths so I just kept on going. When I did head back, I got my book and MA her study material and we headed out to the barbecue patio to relax in the shade. It eventually evolved into lunch and more reading but when both of us started to get sleepy we went to the comfort of the room with its air conditioner where I alternated between sleep and more pages of the book.
In Lonely Planet's Bicycling Cuba (currently out of print) the author described a restaurant across from Hotel Liberdade so I thought it would be an idea to check it out. But, when we were there, there was no further evidence of a restaurant. The hotel was there but it just looked like homes across the road from it. The heat was oppressive so we returned soon afterwards. On the way back we saw two young boys trying to knock mangoes out of a tree so I stopped to snap a photo or two. They seemed excited to see themselves in the photos and laughed when I called one of the Toronto Blue Jays and the other Detroit Tigers. Of course, if they knew no english maybe they were laughing t the funny sounds coming out of my mouth!
Back at the hotel as we arrived there was a group of about twenty cyclists just arriving on an organized tour. They looked red-faced and warm. This seemed to be in addition to the group we saw earlier - the same ones from Soroa yesterday. We saw the Norwegians (she turned sixty today) as well as the junior guide who set us up on the bus yesterday. Quite the coincidence!
I also met their main guide, Jaime, who was keen to hear about the SkyLine Drive.
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Later when I went to see Jaime I asked if there was a chance that his bus could transport us to Jibacoa when they head east for more of their trip. He said it would not have been a problem except the bus was full but to check with Viazul which he guessed would cost about CUC$11 each plus CUC$7 for each bike or a total of CUC$36 for everything to get us to Havana from Vinales.
He suggested a route for us but warned that the first climb is rocky and steep so to be careful.
It was different to see a number of non-Cubans after yesterday being so quiet here. This would be an ok place to come with kids though there is no beach nearby. You'd have to have a car to zip to the north to the coast for some of the time. But, at CUC$30 per day, or CUC$210 per week, including breakfast, that's fairly inexpensive!
As we sat by the pool, we could see Joel (the helper with the bus yesterday) so went to sit with him and chat with him. We ended up chatting all night with him. He came back to the room to see our bikes, then we sat and chatted about life philosophy; really, it was about the fact that no matter what is visible on the surface, we are all just people.
Joel has an amazing outlook - he says that helping to guide bike yours does not even feel like work - he loves the opportunity to learn from the people he meets and learn about where he is in order to share it with whom he meets. He initially wanted to be a pilot, but in Cuba that is fairly tough.
A few months ago he met a Canadian tour operator who asked him if he wanted a job leading tours. But, Joel was already in a contract and would not break the contract. His contract ends April 30th, so I will call this John Atkinson to say Joel is interested in working for him. If anyone else is interested in someone who would be a great asset to a tour group, send me a private message.
MA and I were going to have a quick supper upstairs, but because there were two big cycling tours, it was closed and everyone was at the barbecue patio where a live Cuban band was playing. So, we joined Joel at a table. MA had the pork platter; I had the chicken platter and I have to say that the chicken leg was the size of a cow. For CUC$3.50 which included rice, fries, tomato, cucumber, the cow-chicken and a pop (pop alone on the menu is CUC$1), it means that Cubans serve CUC$2.50 cow-chicken meals!
Seeing as tomorrow is another long day we decided we'd better get to bed so we returned to the room where I had the best shower ever - cleaned of all the sun cream, sweat-oil and cow-chicken grease. I like to be clean.
Of course, I had to read a few pages of Wilbur Smith!
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