It’s almost an easy ride to Mayari.
Leaving Banes we pick up some more of the pizza-to-go from the kiosk by
the hospital and then take a virtually empty road southwards across a flat
coastal plain. It’s our first fast ride
and the fields are more open – sugarcane growing thick in huge fields. A lot of folk on bicycles or in little horse
and wagon affairs. Finally we turn a
corner and into the unforgiving easterly wind.
We pass through a tiny village with a horrible industrial roar. It’s a small diesel-powered electricity-generating plant.
In Mayari we pass a Sunday afternoon game of baseball. It's the national sport. When Fidel was a young man he almost got signed up by the Washington Nationals. His position? Left fielder, what else. Actually I made that bit up. But what if, eh?? The town is strung out and we cycle slowly looking for an address in our guidebook. We soon give up that malarkey and ask at the first place with the tell-tale blue and white sign hanging up. The woman of the house shows Gayle the room and then the man of the house helps us bring the bike into the caged veranda where a car is parked up.
It turns out Israel's a doctor - he and his wife, Sonia, went to live and work in Venezuela as part of a government exchange deal - doctors in exchange for oil. Now they're back and have a young son. We wondered if he still works as a doctor. We pay half his monthly salary for a one night stay - $20. In the town there's a band playing, people gathering to listen, ice-cream man serving up ice cream straight out of a chest-freezer. Later from our balcony we watch the visiting baseball team getting into the back of an open high-sided truck to ride home.
The ride eastwards takes us to Sagua de Tanamo where we stop for the night at an out of town casa. It's an up and down ride with a lot of wind and some heat. A bit of a hair-dryer day. Continuing on the next day brings us to the bigger town of Moa. The sprawling town has a university on the outskirts. When we get to the centre the streets are red with dirt. We stop at a pizza stall - it's becoming our staple lunch. Only this pizza stall just stopped making pizza. Happily a kiosk over the road has them too.
We then spend an inordinate amount of time looking for a casa particular. There's something ugly and unkempt about the town - it is totally modern i.e. concrete communist-era buildings. We find a room down by the sea shore. The owner tells us the sea is polluted here because of the mine. The nickel mine. One of the biggest in the world. All the mine effluence is pumped out to sea.
We witness this environmental disaster close up the next day on the long road to Baracoa. Chimney stacks belch smoke, huge pipelines snake alongside the road. It reminds us of the old Russian industrial mess in Central Asia. Everything is red with the dust of the earth. The trucks plying back and forth spread the colour everywhere - over every building and plant, every vehicle, every signpost. We too start to get a red dust coating but then it begins to rain. We wait for a while in a roadside shelter - a homemade bus stop.
The dirt road is now a mud road. We push up a couple of steep hills but then the rain stops and we get a little steam up. The coastal road takes us around headlands and across bays. We eat the bread Gayle bought yesterday at a shop. The shopkeeper wouldn't let her buy the bread - it turned out you needed a ration card. However, another customer gave Gayle 6 bread buns. They weren't big, but it was an incredibly generous gesture.
At the end of the afternoon we reach the river just before Baracoa. There's a minor problem, but it explains the lack of traffic along the road - there is no bridge. It has washed away. A new bridge is being built. A sign points us off the road and into the undergrowth along the riverbank. After trudging through a sloppy muddy trail we reach a place where boatmen in canoes are plying back and forth. There's a policeman, but we're not sure if he's trying to cross or keeping everything in order. We are waved forward and our bikes are handed down to a small boat whilst we get onboard with all our panniers. There are life jackets to put on. The bikes are perched horizontally across the bow of the boat. I mean perched. Balanced. An old lady joins us at the stern and the young boatman sits with his back to the bow and starts rowing. The river is wide and fast flowing. I have no idea how deep it is but without doubt deep enough for the bikes to disappear into. The boat rocks. The boat rolls slightly. I inhale sharply. The rower pauses. He lets the boat settle again before rowing. He is really having to pull hard, fighting the current. After a lifetime we reach a dock at the other side. The old lady hops off. The bikes are lifted off. We have made it.
In Mayari we pass a Sunday afternoon game of baseball. It's the national sport. When Fidel was a young man he almost got signed up by the Washington Nationals. His position? Left fielder, what else. Actually I made that bit up. But what if, eh?? The town is strung out and we cycle slowly looking for an address in our guidebook. We soon give up that malarkey and ask at the first place with the tell-tale blue and white sign hanging up. The woman of the house shows Gayle the room and then the man of the house helps us bring the bike into the caged veranda where a car is parked up.
 |
| Sonia and Israel |
It turns out Israel's a doctor - he and his wife, Sonia, went to live and work in Venezuela as part of a government exchange deal - doctors in exchange for oil. Now they're back and have a young son. We wondered if he still works as a doctor. We pay half his monthly salary for a one night stay - $20. In the town there's a band playing, people gathering to listen, ice-cream man serving up ice cream straight out of a chest-freezer. Later from our balcony we watch the visiting baseball team getting into the back of an open high-sided truck to ride home.
 |
| a green and pleasant ride |
 |
| roadside entrepeneurs |
The ride eastwards takes us to Sagua de Tanamo where we stop for the night at an out of town casa. It's an up and down ride with a lot of wind and some heat. A bit of a hair-dryer day. Continuing on the next day brings us to the bigger town of Moa. The sprawling town has a university on the outskirts. When we get to the centre the streets are red with dirt. We stop at a pizza stall - it's becoming our staple lunch. Only this pizza stall just stopped making pizza. Happily a kiosk over the road has them too.
 |
| just before they run out of pizzas |
 |
| the charming town of Moa |
We witness this environmental disaster close up the next day on the long road to Baracoa. Chimney stacks belch smoke, huge pipelines snake alongside the road. It reminds us of the old Russian industrial mess in Central Asia. Everything is red with the dust of the earth. The trucks plying back and forth spread the colour everywhere - over every building and plant, every vehicle, every signpost. We too start to get a red dust coating but then it begins to rain. We wait for a while in a roadside shelter - a homemade bus stop.
The dirt road is now a mud road. We push up a couple of steep hills but then the rain stops and we get a little steam up. The coastal road takes us around headlands and across bays. We eat the bread Gayle bought yesterday at a shop. The shopkeeper wouldn't let her buy the bread - it turned out you needed a ration card. However, another customer gave Gayle 6 bread buns. They weren't big, but it was an incredibly generous gesture.
 |
| perched!!! |
 |
| with regret I noticed the smart lad holding onto his bike the whole way across. |
