May 17, 2015
Facts about Holguin
From Lonely Planet Guide to Cuba
Producer of the nation’s four main beers (Cristal, Bucanero, Mayabe and Cacique), Holguín might create a substantial part of Cuba’s entertainment industry, but it’s intoxicating on its own terms, too. With the division of Oriente into five separate provinces in 1976, the city of Holguín became a provincial capital. Besides beer, the key industries are agriculture and nickel. The city has also cultivated an international reputation for drug rehabilitation: Argentine soccer star Diego Maradona came here for rehab in 2000 (it was to be the start of a long-running friendship between the footballer and Fidel Castro). Most recently, Holguín suffered a severe mauling from Hurricane Ike in 2008.
Friendly Faces
Jose: A friendly guy we met outside of the bus station. We talked about bicycles, ours, and his, and then he gave us a handful of Cuba stickers to adorn our bicycles with. Then he intimated that he would love to get one of our bells, or some allen keys in return, but we were happy to just take the stickers and wish him well!
Cycling Stats
Start point: Gibara, Holguin, Cuba
Destination: Holguin, Holguin, Cuba
41.7 km distance, 13.3 average speed, 43.2 maximum speed
3:07 riding time
What happened…
Andrew writes: There ended up being a change in plans today, and it was OK. We weren’t in a rush to leave Gibara, because we expected the ride to be really short. And it was…distance wise…yet, I guess in my head I wasn’t expecting it to be one hill after another again. I thought Holguin was in the “plains” of Cuba. So when we did reach Holguin, we rode past the parks that Amanda describes, and found the bus station, and it wasn’t even lunchtime yet.
I made the executive decision to hop on a bus to Sancti Spiritus today, instead of spending money on a Casa in Holguin and then “wasting” tomorrow all day on the bus. So we went for another ride through the city to see the sights (there weren’t any as far as I could tell), and then hung out at the bus station for several hours until our bus finally came at 11pm. Hopefully we can both get some sleep on the bus over the next 7 hours as it drives to SS.
Today’s Photographs
[flickr_tags user_id=”17145280@N00″ tags=”051715″]