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Playa Girón to Cienfuegos.

People touch here. The woman briefly hold hands when they pass each other amid the clusters of kiosks that serve as market squares in the rural town centers. They smile warmly into each other’s eyes before they move on.
The men are close talkers. They stand belly to belly, chest to chest, often reaching over to clasp a forearm or a shoulder.
Everyone rides bikes and sometimes there will be three or more people crammed onto a bike built for one, all hugging each other’s bodies to keep everyone safely on the ride. As people walk down the street they call “Hola.”, into the open doors of every casa. There is so much affection between the people, so much camaraderie, and it all adds to a feeling of security.

On this bike tour, it is the people that our the highlight. Their kindness, ingenuity, generosity and warmth has been incredible. Every night we are received graciously into our casa and offered a glass of fresh squeezed fruit juice. Sometimes mango or guava or pineapple. We sit in the shade, often in rockers and talk with our hosts, telling stories, comparing home lives and getting tips on the next part of our adventure. There is no rushing and no money exchanged. They are all so patient with my Spanish and do everything they can to make sure we are as comfortable as possible here in their country.

Today we made it to Cien Fuego and are staying in a stately house with 20 foot ceilings and a roof top patio-a vestige of another time here. Cien Fuego is known as the city of columns because the streets are lined with them. They hold up block-long verandas, and along with the trees planted alongside, create tunnels of shade and a respite from the relentless sun. It is a beautiful city full of history and pride.

Playa Larga to Playa Girón

“What’s in the bucket?”, asks Weezie. We are stopped by the side of the road asking two older gentlemen with heavily creased faces, straddling their rattletrap bicycles whether the road ahead is bike worthy. We both reckon that these guys would know, they and their bicycles looked like they had seen a lot of life and probably had a good lay of the land.
I was wholly focused on deciphering their Spanish and their gestures, which were adding up to, “Don’t go on this road, it is long, hot and terrible and you will get many flat tires—pinchadas.”, while Weezie was surveying the scene, like she always does.

The bucket in question was bungeed on to the back of one of the gentlemen’s bikes and when I looked, I saw that it was filled with of a huge, brown, spongy mass that was covered with bees.
“Abejas.”, responded the man and with a big smile he reached back and gently coaxed several off the hive on to his hand. “The bees in Cuba don’t sting-no pica.” he said with the penuche of a circus performer. They delicately crawled along his arm while he murmured to them with gentle affection before placing them back on their hive. I told him that I had hives of my own back in Maine, but that his bees seemed a lot nicer.

“Taste some honey.” he said and showed us where to stick our fingers into the oozy mess. We did and it was delicious; sweet and delicate, just like his bees.

Southern Cuba has a very different energy from what we have experienced so in the north and west. It is tranquil and it seems to be slightly less impoverished. Perhaps that is because the coastline here opens up onto the most beautiful beaches in the world, more than brochure worthy. It is everything you think of when you think of the Caribbean; warm turquoise waters, coral reefs, coconut palms, white sand beaches- the works. We spent the afternoon snorkeling today and saw beautiful tropical fish in protected atolls where we could loll about without a care.
Tourists come here from Canada and Europe fairly regularly and they bring their money, so the economy has some vitality. There is delicious fried fish to be had, rock lobster, yucca. Plenty to fill up a belly and tasty too boot. There are many places to stay and it is very safe and inexpensive. Weezie and I generally pay about 20-30 dollars for our accommodation and about five dollars for a meal. If you ever get a chance, you should come. It would be good for you, and for the people here.

Playa Largo Rest Day

Weezie squeaks to an abrupt stop behind me “Leah,” she calls, “Can we stop here for just a minute?” We have miles upon miles to go to get to our destination, it is hot and the wind is building as it does every afternoon, but there is no choice. For there on the side of the road is a gaggle of nine children, all looking for some diversion on a Saturday morning and Weezie has just the thing. I hop off my bike and amble back to her, down the dusty street, in a town not even big enough to have a name.

Weezie’s command of the Spanish language isn’t great, but she finds a way to communicate through smiles, pantomime and her ability to relate to children with her heart first.
She opens her pannier and pulls out a long fire-engine-red rope and hands one end to a little girl of maybe six. Weezie then takes the other end backs away from the her and begins to swing it, slowly at first, sweeping it back and forth across the rocky ground.

She beckons for one of the kids to jump.
With a shy smile, but a brave swagger, a boy of about ten comes forward begins to jump. After he has mastered jumping over the sweeping rope, Weezie and the girl begin to swing it over his head. He jumps high, his flip flops slapping against the soles of his feet again and again and again. The kids cheer and shout encouragement until finally he misses. All the kids laugh and push one another forward, cajoling each other to take turns. Their bodies bump and shimmy like a little roiling pile of puppies.

When everyone has taken a turn, Weezie rolls up the rope, stuffs it back in her pannier and gives a round of high fives.
“Okay,” she says, “we can go now.” Her grin is only matched by the grins of all the children around her.
Sometimes, language has no words.

Today is a rest day. We are spending it sitting on the sand by the Bay of Pigs, eating, doing laundry and reading. This area has seen so much turmoil, but today tranquility reins.

Cardenas to Playa Largo

Biking south from the north coast of central Cuba to the south coast took us up out of Cardenas and into the rural country side. Posted along the road on billboards and telephone poles was one Cuban political slogan after another, “Vive Cuba!” and “Castro es feiles!” (faithful) and “Vive la revolution!” It was a bit overwhelming and made the area feel heavily militaristic.

The reason for these signs is because Cardenas is the area of Cuba closest to the US and many people leave from here on fast boats to try to make it to Florida. I guess a last ditch effort to try and foster some Cuban national pride is understandable. Many people here have voiced discontent about their country’s politics to us. It comes up in nearly every conversation.

We met a grandfather in his sixties caring for his five year old twin grandsons because their parents had left on a fast boat out of desperation to get money enough to care for them. They can return in eight years, until then they face time every night.

We have met several men whose wives work in America as doctors, physical therapists and laundresses, and all of them hoped to see them again in two or three years. “This is life.”, shrugged our waiter whose wife was working in Mexico City, “It is what we have to do. She will be home, I hope, in a year.”

As we cycled farther from the coast, the signs were replaced with sugar cane fields, banana groves and yucca farms. I was grateful to take a break from this feeling of unrest. The sun beat down upon us and after many miles we stopped in a little shack on stilts on the side of the road to seek some respite in the shade.

As we looked across the fields from our little perch, I saw a fire flaring up along the side of the road further along. We sat there watching it, wondering if it was a controlled fire situation or not as the flames grew bigger and bigger and began devouring more and more of the vegetation. The wind picked up and the fire jumped and roared and we saw then that it was racing towards a little house surrounded by livestock.

By now, other farmers had noticed the smoke and had come to help, They started hauling the cattle, the horses and the calves away from the house and tying them in them in the road where maybe the flames wouldn’t reach them. Weezie and I went to help as well, just as the owner of the house roared into view on her motor bike. She saw us standing there watching the flames engulf everything she had and shouted at us, “This is Cuba!”, gesturing and the crackling flames. We asked if we could help.

“Maybe.” she said, and we stood together in the road waiting to see what could be done, while the flames soared ever higher and closer to her home.

(The house was saved and so were the animals due to lots of help and a truck full of water that sprayed the house. But, the flames continued to race across the land and burn many many acres. We left when the house was safe, but the fire was still completely out of control.)

Playa Jibacoa to Cardenas.

Fortunately, when Weezie and I woke up this morning, the dawn was cool and silky and we had both slept well, lulled by the sounds of waves crashing just feet from our door. We ate Cliff Bars for breakfast and I had a Trader Joe’s instant coffee in my bicycle bottle ( perfect for addicts on the run), and we were off. There was barely a tickle of a breeze.

Unfortunately, there were hills, lots of them. It is easy for me to be overly optimistic and convince myself that the coast is flat. It is not. Only in New Jersey.

Fortunately, Weezie found a road side stand where we could get more sustenance and we procured cheese sandwiches with no lubrication, two Cuban Coffees and four fresh squeezed mango juices for the equivalent of four dollars.

Unfortunately, the breeze began to pick up. A tickle turned into a cough and then a roar. We took turns blocking the wind from each other mile after mile for 54 miles. Our knees ached, our stomachs rumbled, our skin burnt.

Fortunately, we made it to our destination, Cardenas and saw that this town had a lot of food options. We were very excited to partake.
Unfortunately, when we tried to find a place to say, an aggressive woman with red eyes and a matronly swagger told us that this was a dangerous town and led us to what she said was the only accommodation. It was behind a welded metal fence comprised of sheets of tin and the yard was a dirt lot that looked very much like a dump. The man at the door grumpily told us he rented by the hour. We already played that game a few nights ago and I didn’t want to play it again.

Fortunately, Weezie had the where-with-all to extract us from that situation and the optimism to believe that we would find something else.

Unfortunately, the traffic was chaotic and stressful. The streets were full of trucks, cars, bicycle taxis, horse and carts, mopeds and us and not a traffic light in sight. People just nodded at each other and kind of took turns at every dusty, loud intersection.
Fortunately, we made it to the historic Hotel Dominica. It had just been refurbished and had beautiful wrought iron balconies, tall arched windows with wooden slated shutters, immaculate tile floors and 14 foot high ceilings. On a whim, fueled by exhaustion, we asked how much for two people to stay. Thirteen dollars, including breakfast. We walked up the marble floors to our room and found three beds with red sashes laid across white cotton sheets and beautiful artwork on the walls.

Unfortunately, there was no power. We went to the restaurant downstairs because we were told they were serving dinner anyway, but after a heated argument in the kitchen, our server came out seemingly humiliated and told us he had been wrong, there was no food.

Fortunately, with sweat beading on his upper lip, he bade us to stay seated at the bar, that was lit by a cell phone light and said he would run through the darkened town and get us pizzas because he knew his way in the dark and where to go. We couldn’t say no because he was so impassioned.

Unfortunately, he didn’t get us pizzas. After waiting for quite some time, he returned with hamburgers. Weezie and I are die hard vegetarians. I couldn’t do it. Weezie ate them because she had to and has been complaining of the shag rug she feels in her mouth ever since.

Fortunately, when we retreated upstairs and I lay on my bed to write this by the open window that leads to the balcony, the electricity came back on. The people in the streets cheered.
Now the breeze is gentle again and I can hear the clip-clops of the horses trotting by. It was a terrific day.

San Diego de Las Vegas to to Playa Jibacoa

Weezie and I are sitting on our bed in a honeymoon suite looking over the Caribbean and eating Pringles, apple juice and beer. This place is decked out with painted hearts, silhouettes of people passionately kissing, mood lighting and towels sculpted into swans. My how fortunes change.

We just returned from a walk through the town looking for something to eat for dinner and found nothing but chips.

The food shortage is a very real issue in Cuba there is simply not enough. People live on pizza, fried fish and rice and beans, if they are lucky, and not much else. A constant conversation with the people we meet is how much rice costs, how much cheese costs and how the rations that they receive from the government are just not enough.

On our best of days, we can find these items. They are cooked simply and presented to us with kindness and generosity. However, between you and me, eating rice and beans and flour everyday is doing a number on my guts and that is only after a week!
And then there are days like today, when there is no food in our town, thus the Pringles, but who can complain? Weezie and I are the most fortunate.

Weezie is getting adventurous. She delightedly found what she thought was a protein shake today in a small town, and came bopping down the street slurping it up. I decided that it appeared to be just the thing, but when I got to the cart, I saw that her drink was coming out of a sugar cane juicer. Diabetes in a cup. No matter, starved for variation I got one too. It made my teeth ache.

Tomorrow we continue east, and have been told that food will become harder and harder to come by. We will stock up on peanut butter bars that I have seen here and there on various food carts and bananas. We will have enough. Besides, I still have my muffin tops.

Las Terrazzas to Santiago de Las Vegas

Not all days are all lovely. In order to cross over to the east side of Cuba, Weezie and I had to cycle close to Havana to avoid the mid-southern coast and the destruction there that was caused by a cyclone in November. This was something that we didn’t want to do because the outskirts of Havana are a little rough, but needs must.

After a somewhat grueling day involving intense sun, intense traffic, and intense noise from the wind and honking cars, we arrived in San Diego de Las Vegas. It is loud and chaotic in this town and we felt rushed to get off the streets and out of the diesel fumes. We jumped at the first Casa Particular that we found just a few streets over from the bus station.
We were shown to a windowless room and told that there were no keys for the lock on the door, but that “Lord willing,” our things would be safe. They asked how many hours we wanted to rent it for. Weezie and I are both slow processors and the relief of being finished biking for the day, clouded our higher thinking. Cluelessly, we responded that we would like it for the night. They charged us 20 dollars.

Once inside, we began to see things more clearly. First off, Weezie found two condoms on the floor, one of them used. We found that the beds didn’t have sheets and even worse, Weezie’s had a plastic mattress cover. The kitchen where they offered to cook us dinner was piled with encrusted bake ware greasy trash. We demured. The whole place made our skin crawl, but night had come and we had already paid, so after distracting ourselves with a few rounds of the card game “Spite and Malice”, we took out our own sheets from home and cocooned ourselves in them, to eagerly await morning.

Tomorrow will head back into the countryside, where tranquility reins, but tonight we will hold our breath and hope that the Lord is indeed willing.

San Diego de Banos to Las Terrazas

“You’re going the wrong way!”, shouts a gentleman sitting on a spiffy, red motorcycle. This is not the first time this has happened. Enough people cycle here along the same network of roads that the locals seem to know where we want to go before we do. We screech to a stop and start using our best Spanglish to ask him to clarify what he means. “Speak English, speak English,” he says, “I am Enrique and I work as a bicycle guide for CicloCuba. I need to practice.” We happily oblige and start showing him our maps and talking about our plans right there in the intersection.

“Oh no, a cyclone has taken out those roads, don’t go there. And over there, it is boring. Three days of sugar cane farms, hot highways, wind and nothing else. You need to take a bus.” Neither Weezie of I had any intention of that and besides, she needed to wrap up the conversation because of an excruciating need to use the bushes, so we thanked him and biked away. In the right direction this time.

After a full day of biking, we arrived at our casa particular, this time high in the mountains. The owner had just finished cementing a new pool that was fed by cold water caught high in the mountains and he invited us to christen it, which we did. It felt like a baptism. He seemed so happy with our happiness. After our swim, he emptied it to prepare it for painting and we began to do a bit of bike maintenance.
Suddenly, a very familiar spiffy red, motorcycle roared up the drive. It was Enrique. This time he was prepared with maps, business cards, guide books and the time and energy to make sure we enjoyed our bicycle ride on Cuba to the utmost. After insisting that we would not take a bus, we sat together at an out door table and worked on rerouting our ride, choosing several beautiful pueblo that to the north that he was familiar with instead of other less inviting ones that we had planned on and avoiding areas destroyed by the cyclone, as well as, the “boring parts” of Cuba.

We shared “the cyclists campagne”, a combination of a Sprite-like soda and felt thoroughly refreshed, invigorated and much wiser. And then he was off, bouncing down the road and racing 45 miles back to his home where his family was waiting. Unbelievable kindness.

Vinales to San Diego de los Banos

There is a network of friends and family that stretchs through out Cuba linking Casa Particulares from one town to the next. It is an excellent system that a cyclist or traveler can follow easily, by simply asking their host where to stay in their next destination. There always seems to be a cousin or a friend that has a room to rent in every town and with a quick phone call, a spot is secured and a traveler can rest easy knowing that some kind soul, will be waiting to receive them.

Most casa particulares cost about twenty dollars per room. For an extra five dollars, they will also feed you a basic, but delicious meal of beans and rice, bread and butter, fried fish and yucca for dinner, or the same for breakfast replacing the fish with a platter of bananas, guava and pineapples, juice, an egg and delicious coffee.

Owning a Casa Particular is a great source of income for the host and once they get word that a guest is coming they do everything in their power to secure your stay.

At one casa, a young woman was sent out to great us on a horse and cart. We were nearly two hours later than we thought we would be, but five miles out from her home, heading in the direction we were expected, there she was.
“Leah?” She asked with a wide smile when we pedaled into view. “Venga.” She then proceeded to lead us along a long, red clay road, through banana and guava fields back to her simple, clean, tranquil home. Her horse keeping pace with our bicycles the whole way. Once there we were given coconut milk to quench our parched throats and spent the afternoon practicing Spanish with her extended relations and playing with her son.

The next night, we stayed at her cousin’s house, forty miles away. We were told we would find it right next to the gas station. Again, we were two hours later than expected, (seems to be a pattern, but there is so much to see!) and there was our host, sitting astride her bicycle waiting with a warm smile. She called out our names when we appeared and led us down a network of dirt roads and alleys to her charming home, seemingly unfazed that she had been sitting there waiting for such a long time. We have no way to make contact with anyone on our own because of our lack of phone service, and so we can’t tell them we will be late. Upon our arrival, she offered us her phone so that we could make contact with our spouses and let them know we were safe so at least they wouldn’t worry.

Tonight, we stopped at a stall alongside the road for a snack of chocolate galletas and pear nectar at a little wooden stand set up under the shade of a huge umbrella tree. We were told my the merchant of yet another lovely home a few miles up the road. The requisite phone call was made and again our host appeared, a few miles from the town limits to usher us in. This time on a moped. Conveniently, two white women on bicycles loaded down with panniers is an odd sight here in Cuba and it makes us hard to miss.

Because our phones don’t work here, we are relying on this chain of goodwill and the shepherding that these women do to find our way. We would never find these spots otherwise. It has been my favorite and most meaningful part of the trip so far. I wonder who we will be lucky enough to meet tomorrow.

Palma Rubio to Vinales 30 miles

Weezie and I are deep within a cave just north of Vinales. The walls and ceiling are comprised of fluted limestone, sculpted from an underground river that wound through this land long ago. Slaves that were fleeing from their plantations used to hide here, living within these walls for years at a time.

It is dark. Very dark because the lights in the cave that are supposed to show the way have gone out. We use the lights on our cell phones and they cast shadows on our faces adding an eerie effect to an already eerie subject. Mid way through the tour, our guide deviates from her script because of all of our questions and we find ourselves in a prolonged political discussion, full of many more questions than answers. I feel like we are in a secret meeting, speaking of things that shouldn’t be said outside this hidden cavern. It feels like dangerous territory and I feel privileged to be hearing it.
When we finally come out into the light, my head feels laden with thoughts and emotions concerning Cuba’s plight, but I have no idea how they can move forward, nor does it seem do the people here.
There has been a country wide blackout for most of every day that we have been here. The streets are dark when the sun goes down. There are no street lights, no house lights just the hum of few generators few and far between. The potholed roads are fairly treacherous to navigate and the streets don’t t feel terribly safe, so most people head inside or onto their porches where they speak quietly and seem to just be patiently waiting.
My phone is losing power and I have no way to charge it so I will end this now. This land is incredibly beautiful and the people seem to have resiliency in their genes. Tomorrow I promise not to talk about politics, it is just hard to look away.