Cabanas to Palma Rubia
I think my ears are growing. Blossoming out of my head so that I look like a bat, twitching as they try to hone in on every sound. Grasping at the Spanish words that fly by, catching some but missing others that dart away, remaining in the world on incomprehension. They ache and itch and my brain buzzes. I figure that it must be those synapses in there over-firing, and believe it or not, I love it.
Every night we stay in a different family’s house called a Casa Particular. They seem to be full of grandparents, children, brothers, sisters, nieces, parents, friends and the many relations therein. Sometimes a few of them know a handful of words in English, but often not and they all seem to have a lot of questions. We cover politics, the weather, our bicycle trip plan, share local knowledge of the area and talk about Weezie and my life at home. This is all an fantastic learning experience, but exhausting! So far we have eaten like queens every night, filling our bellies with homemade beans and rice, fried fish, yucca, and sliced cucumbers and tomatoes. Perfect after a long hot day of riding.
Tonight we have settled into a Casa Particular that is surrounded by fields of guava and banana in every direction They roll up to lush, verdant mountains to the south and down to the Caribbean sea to the north. The rich ochre soils and deep green crops, under the startlingly blue sky saturate the landscape with intense color that is quite different from the winter landscape in my home state of Maine. I feel drunk with it.
In Cuba, horses are more plentiful than cars and many go prancing by on the road outside the house with children as young as six controlling the reins. We watch many horse drawn carts bounce by serving as school buses, taxis, and delivery trucks. As many six people cram onto carts built for two and only stay aboard by holding tightly to each other as they are jostled over bumps and potholes. It is idyllic.
Of course, amongst all this beauty there is a bit of chaos. Weezie has decided to proclaim herself Chief Safety Officer after noticing that I am not so good with details like making sure my bags are closed completely or that the laundry that I strapped to my panniers to dry doesn’t get caught in my disc brakes and cause me to come to an abrupt halt. (I was untangled by a charming young man so it wasn’t all bad.)
She has also decided to serve as Chief Navigator which I am grateful for because my brain hurts and I love not using my phone. (Plus she is the one that remembered to download the maps to her phone back when we had WiFi, whereas I have a three foot long paper copy that would be very difficult to look at while riding.)
And she has proclaimed herself Chief Financial Officer and is keeping track of what we spend, because she is good like that. So what am I responsible for? Not much. Speaking Spanish, waxing on about what I have learned on previous tours and enjoying the ride. Sounds about perfect.