February 11, 2019 to February 12, 2019
The wind up begins
There was a pitcher for the Seattle Mariners (in the days when they were a great team) whose name I can’t remember. His claim to fame was that as a starting pitcher he had the slowest delivery of any of the pitchers on the team but he was still a very effective pitcher. This wind up to our tour feels like that – a long slow delivery that will eventually get us across home plate (Vancouver in this case).
This morning we said a fond farewell to our casa hosts Lucy and her aunt Felisa. We enjoyed our breakfast and were really looking forward to a nice, relaxing ride down to Matanzas with a great tailwind. But of course, we can’t do everything the absolute easy way, so on our way out of Veradero we went left instead of right and ended up on a country road several kilometres away from the Via Blanco we were meant to be on. Rather than backtrack (who ever likes to do that?), we managed to find a route through the farmland using back roads. It was quite an enjoyable route a it turned out, as we got to see areas around Varadero that normal tourists have no idea exist. This included quite a lot of oil pipelines in amongst the farms.
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We eventually made it out onto the Via Blanco just a couple of kilometres before Playa Camarioca, where we had stayed on our way out. As we had a much easier day cycling today, thanks to a tailwind, we didn’t even think about stopping and moved along towards Matanzas. Not too far after Camarioca, we came to a fork in the road and decided to take the quieter side road that went along the coast, rather than stay on the very busy Via Blanca. What a great decision that turned out to be! It was a quiet road sometimes paved and sometimes well maintained dirt. Oddly, every so often a caravan of jeeps would come along moving in the opposite direction. There were about 10-15 cars in each one. Weird! We weren’t sure what that was all about until finally, we came upon Cartoneras, the point where apparently you can dive or snorkel. It was your typical tourist place and as we pulled up, one of the caravans was pulling out – ah! Mystery solved! They had a little bar so we stopped and bought some juice to have with our sandwiches we had made from our leftover breakfast meat and cheese. It’s pretty rocky here so I’m not sure if they pick up divers in a boat or what as we didn’t see one, but the reef wasn’t too far off so it might be a good place to go if you are in the area and want to do some diving or snorkelling.
For us, we had a goal to get to Matanzas, so after our lunch we pushed off again. This is just a thoroughly pleasant road and if you are cycling in either direction, we highly recommend going the couple of extra kms out of the way to go this route. It was lovely to be off the busy route for pretty much all of our day.
Finally we had to rejoin the main road for the last 10km into town where we pulled off and into the old town to see if we could stay at the casa we had stayed at before. Unfortunately they were full, but very kindly phoned around to find us another one. The girl there walked us over to our new casa (it was quite a few blocks!) and introduced us to Mari, who right away welcomed us into her home. These Casas are quite interesting. When you see them from the outside, its hard to know what exactly you are getting. This was true for Casa Suenos. The very small downstairs where Mari welcomed us soon gave way to a lovely suite upstairs where we would be staying. The room was light and airy with high ceilings and our own bathroom (thankfully!). Just outside our room was a delightful outdoor courtyard, containing a couple of tables and chairs for the casa guests and umbrellas high above us to keep off the sun. It is just a wonderful little space and we were thrilled to have found our way here! We changed our clothes and set off to find afternoon coffee and some wifi. We stopped on our way back to pick up the paintings we had purchased from Adrian. It was nice to see him again and to meet his own little daughter who had just come by with her grandmother after finishing her school day (she’s in Kindergarten). All of our “jobs” done, we came back to our room for a short nap. Upon awakening I went to the deck to check on the weather and met Mary from Germany, who is travelling with her dad for a few weeks before being joined by her brother and cousin. She seemed quite nice and hopefully we will meet her and her father tomorrow for breakfast to hear more about their travels. We went downstairs and got directions from Mari to a restaurant she said was “very romantico”. We also got to meet her little son, Samuel, who is quite a busy little 3 year old. As this is the same age as our youngest grandson, Liam, we were especially taken with him and enjoyed chatting with him and his mommy before heading out to dinner.
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The restaurant was, indeed, very romantic, being up on the second floor of a very old building on the main square with doors that opened out to the square where we could hear the noisy chatter of the birds getting ready to roost for the night. We both enjoyed their chicken and I was able to take my leftovers away for our lunch tomorrow – score! It was a little more pricey than other restaurants we have eaten at in Cuba, but their attention to detail and level of service made it worth the price. It was a wonderful dinner.
Coming back to our casa we met Mari’ husband, Noel, who also is an artist. This town seems to have quite the community of artists! Noel doesn’t have any work in town as he has some on display at the Varadero airport. We will hopefully get to see some of the work he has on his laptop tomorrow. Both Mari and Noel are just lovely people, so if you ever come to Matanzas, we highly recommend Hostal Suenos!
Tuesday
Breakfast had been set for 9:00 this morning so we got to sleep in – hurray! As we came out to the courtyard, we met Mary and her father (sorry – I’ve forgotten his name!) and as we all ate our breakfast (I think our best casa breakfast yet!) we enjoyed talking about our travels and hearing about what they have done so far in Cuba and what they have planned. One tale in particular was a great cautionary story for anyone travelling in Cuba – don’t take the train! They arrived in Havana and wanted to take the train to Matanzas that afternoon and so showed up at the train station at the correct time (being Germans, I’m sure they had high expectations for train travel). However, they found out that the train was not on time and so had to wait for 3 hours (!!!) before finally leaving Havana station. Then, halfway to Matanzas (which is only about 100 kms away) the train suddenly stopped and they saw emergency vehicles coming to the engine where apparently the engineer had just died of a heart attack!!! Oh my goodness!! Needless to say, the train was delayed for several more hours as this tragic event was dealt with and they didn’t arrive into Matanzas until midnight! So, if you are not cycling in Cuba, TAKE THE BUS!!!!!
As the day was getting on, we let Mary and her dad head off to their day’s adventure (snorkelling in a cave about 20 kms from town) and we turned to our more mundane tasks. I needed to update the blog so off we went to find wifi cards (Jim now knows all the places to go) and then settled down in one of the wifi parks to work. Oddly, as I was finishing up, furiously trying to load pictures before my time ran out) a security guard came over, baton in hand and sat down next to me. I didn’t take much notice at first, but he stayed there until we finished and I closed my ipad. I’m actually not sure if he was watching me or watching someone else who might have been watching me – who knows? He never said a word to us though, so we walked away a little puzzled by the experience.
We wanted to check out the waterfront in Matanzas and so walked over to sit along the small beach under some palm trees. The beach here, unfortunately is quite full of garbage and doesn’t look like it gets used by people here, which is sad. There are places here in Cuba, out of view of tourists, that are not well kept, as is the case in Mexico and many other places for that matter. We find it sad wherever we go and find places that should be appreciated by the general public abused in this way.
We stopped to check out an interesting old building on our way back, finding that it now functions as a bar. We stopped in and enjoyed a beverage while checking out the building and trying to decide what it might have been. The sign outside suggests maybe an old barracks but we were never too sure – ideas?
Back at the casa, we spent some time with Noel, who showed us samples of his work. His painting that are on display at the airport are quite beautiful, showing wonderful detail and obvious love for the city of Havana. Noel then showed us what he called his “professional work”, paintings that are not at all aimed at tourists but show his view of the world. We found these beautiful and fascinating. It was wonderful to have a long conversation with both Noel and Mari about the things we admire about Cuba today and where they see their country heading. They are, as we said, just lovely lovely people! Eventually we headed upstairs for a little siesta, but were not able to really sleep as a storm blew in as we lay there. The wind blew and rattled the windows and then the thunder and lightening began. It went on for quite some time and we enjoyed knowing that we were snug in our bed while it raged on outside instead of trying to get somewhere on the bikes.
After the storm blew over, we walked up to the square thinking to check out an Italian restaurant Mari had mentioned to us. However, we seemed to get our directions confused and decided to just try a pizza place on the square. Oh boy! This has to go down as the absolute worst place we have eaten on this entire trip! The pizza, when it came, was underdone. The “topping” on one was meant to be sausage of some type but was actually just hotdogs cut up. Yikes!!!! But, food is food, so we ate and then left (the service was just as bad as the food, by the way), stopping at another restored older hotel just a few doors down to see if they had flan to save our evening. They did not, but did serve up some very nice Mojitos, so we enjoyed our little dessert before heading home for the night. Tomorrow we have to take our leave and continue our slow windup by heading to Jibacoa where we are hoping to stay at the same little Casa where we met Danyela.
Today's ride: 44 km (27 miles)
Total: 1,575 km (978 miles)
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