coast to coast

Our aim is Matanzas, the city on the north coast and the landscape is flat.  We feel comfotable about getting there in one day, but there is no direct road so we have to work out a route.  The journey takes us past marshes and through farmland.  We pass several large state-run farms with barracks for the workers. It's a hot and windy ride with a run in to the city along the shore.  Only a couple of blocks form the main plaza we find a lovely renovated old house with the familiar blue sign hanging up.  Regrettably they have a booking so we can only stay one night but the owner takes us to his mum's place the next morning.  This is also in an old house.  She has a group of Americans coming but let's us stay anyway.  The Americans are Quakers from Pennsylvania looking at some of the projects they support in Cuba.

a rather nice restoration

Matanzas is a big sprawl of a city and we enjoy wandering around.  While we're standing outside a Chinese restaurant trying to get in the locked door Gayle spots the Dutch cyclists we didn't meet in Cienfuegos.  We apologise for our error and end up eating Chinese with them.  In the meantime they have been celebrating a birthday with two nights in an all-inclusive in nearby Varadero - Cuba's oldest luxury resort beach.  The Dutch describe to us their horror at the obscene amounts of fresh food, fish, meat, fruit and vegetables which they found there, although I suspect they would have been equally horrified if they hadn't found any.  And so much food piled on tourists' plates and so much food thrown away.  A crime, they say.

a 'fresh' beer caravan

Leaving the city we take a back road into a hidden valley.  This dirt road parallels the coast and takes us through small villages and pretty farmland, before finally emerging on the main coastal highway.  We stop in a small beach town, not far east of Havana.

And then we are cycling back into the capital city, looping around the bay, up and down hills, through neighbourhoods of ugly communist-era appartment blocks and then down by the old waterfront and the run-down streets full of the Old Town not reached yet by the renovation projects.  We return to our original Airbnb appartment in Chinatown where our bike boxes have been stored under a bed.  It feels good to be back here where the sun seems to always shine and a breeze keeps everything fresh.  We enjoy our last few days here before flying back to Cancun.

Santeria followers are easily identified

 

perhaps this photo sums up Cuba best