the Oriente

It’s sunny and hot as we sort our bags and bikes out at Holguin bus terminal.  It’s only 7.30 in the morning and everyone is out and about.  Riding into town we find the main plaza and are ushered out of the park in the centre by two ladies in uniforms.  No, you can’t bring your bikes in here.  We are waved over by more friendly taxi drivers who suggest the kerb-side.  Gayle goes off to forage and returns with four pizzas.  They cost 80 cents total.  Admittedly they’re not pizza as you’d know them.  They’re the size of your palm, quite thick and spread with a tasty cheese and sometimes a splash of tomato paste.  But they’re fresh and filling. They become our Go To Food.  Afterwards I look for coffee and find a corner bar serving coffee in espresso cups for 5 cents.  Strong and sweet.  It reminds me of Brasil.  

And we both start to have South American flashbacks as we pedal through the town and out into the countryside.  Something about the shabbyness, the grand old crumbling buildings, the brightly-painted new concrete houses, the state of the roads, the lush green vegetation, the casual clothes most everyone is wearing, the kids’ school uniforms.  Clouds roll over and it starts to rain.  We’re so warm we don’t care.  And then it gets heavier and we’re quickly soaked and feeling a chill and looking for a bus shelter.  At least Cuba has these – usually providing shade for those engaged in that long wait, probably the one that begins every day.  
 

After the showers have passed we continue on the rolling road out to the north coast, to the town of Gibara.  It’s a small town, mysteriously described as mysterious in our guide book.  It just seems like a nice small quiet town where not a lot goes on.  It exudes a sleepy charm.  We find a casa de particular – a guesthouse – where we are shown a room upstairs.  There’s a terrace with sea and garden views, all very nice and breezy.  Anna the landlady is very polite, her son Raul speaks a little English.  They’ve had cyclists to stay before.  Raul’s bike is a Dutch one – the drivetrain has a thick coating of rust.  He complains about the cost of spare parts.  The cheap plastic pedals cost him $10.  I feel embarrassed at the thought of the cost of our bikes.  We hadn’t seen that many in Havana, but here everyone seems to have one. Mostly for running errands, but we also see folk doubling up for a free ride.  The town is too small for the cycle rickshaws that proliferate in the cities.

newly renovated

probably the best meal we have in Cuba

sunset football - a relatively new phenomenon, football has become popular since the 2014 World Cup.  The national sport is baseball.

Lazy days.  Dog day afternoons.  We wander the streets looking for vegetables.  A cabbage here, onions there.  Peppers down there.  Tomatoes from that corner.  We trace a bakery by asking and backtracking the routes of locals carrying loaves under their arms.  A woman in the plaza is selling churros rellenos – a wonderful sweet treat. 

It seems that we are obsessed by food.  We are.  It seems that self-catering, primarily as a way to cut costs, also gives us another way of looking at life in Cuba.  We visit the state-run market selling only rice, beans and squash.  It’s an eye-opener.  The last time we found such a dearth of fresh produce was probably Mongolia.  We think back to the spoils of Viet Nam where we lived for a year.  The climate here seems very similar.  In Viet Nam there was wonderful produce all year around.  Plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables. What’s the difference here?  Is it government policies?  Or do the Vietnamese just work harder?  The answer is probably yes to both of these questions. Economic sanctions must also restrict the availability of equipment and other agricultural products.

 Down the road there’s a beach.  Unfortunately the road is not asphalted anymore.  Successive hurricanes have stripped it back to dirt.  We ride twenty kilometres in the hot sun to a well-worn village, looking half-abandoned in the bleaching light of midday.  There’s a tiny but perfect white curve of sand and a couple of small swimming holes.  Swimming in one of the holes are a couple of Canadian women, who have come for a winter break to stay with a brother and his Cuban wife.   

Cuba is a windy island - so the more wind turbines the better

 
Back in the town there is a trickle of foreign tourists, but mostly it’s day-tripping locals from Holguin who come to visit.  There’s a film festival held here each year, but Anna explains it’s been postponed because of general elections.  Raul Castro is standing down.  Who will he the people choose as his successor?  They need foreign investment, she tells us. They need the US embargo to be completely lifted. It goes without saying. 



We love Gibara for its peacefulness, its quiet relaxed pace, its faded charm.  It reminds us of Mahdia in Tunisia – the kind of place where nothing happens often.  What’s here?  What is there to see?  Take a seat in some shade in the plaza and feel the breeze wafting through.