April 19, 2015

What happened…

Andrew writes:

I felt like such a zombie yesterday, it is hard to remember what happened. We woke up with the sun and packed up. There was a cafeteria across the street from our campsite, so we grabbed some coffee and fried egg sandwiches for an early breakfast. Then we left San Antonio in our tracks, but it will remain forever in our memories.

The rough dirt roads of yesterday turned back into crappy pavement. We rode through lush farmland, soaking in the early morning sun, and a cool breeze in our faces. Shortly after we passed through the town of San Geronimo, there was, as we had been told, rice laid out on the road to dry. It was strange, it took up half of the road. At one point an oncoming truck drove over the rice, yielding our half of the road to us.

We reached Florida, the first decent sized city since Ciego de Avila. It was election day, and a Sunday, and people were out en masse. Some were visiting family at the Necropolis Florida, others were grouped together, talking. We stopped at a crowded cafeteria (since crowded ones must have good food, and chatted with some of the men there while we had refresco and pizza for second-breakfast. After going all day yesterday without food, I wasn’t about to pass up any opportunities to eat! Then we continued riding through Florida until we reached the autopista.

Once on the auto pista it was pretty much a straight-shot for 35km to Camaguey, Cuba’s third largest city. I can’t recall anything of significance because there wasn’t anything. It was just farms on either side the whole way. Oh, there was the one time I stopped at a cafeteria to have 5 glasses of refresco. A good thing too, since we managed to drink ALL of our water, except for some of our emergency store. As I had predicted when we left San Antonio, we reached Camaguey by 1’o’clock.

As we entered the town, I plugged the name/address of a Casa Particular into our iPhone, thinking that we could follow it and avoid getting lost in the maze that is Camaguey. It really is a maze! Hundreds of years ago, to thwart pirate attacks, the city planners created the city in a labyrinthine fashion. So, we’re riding along, and as soon as I hesitated, a man (let’s call him Thomas), also riding his bicycle offered to help give us directions. “Come with me, my aunt has a casa, you will like it!” he offered. Since it was in the same direction as the one I had on the phone, we followed. The first casa we came to, I stopped.

Me: Ok, we’ll stay here.
Thomas: No, no. This one is no good, my aunt’s place is very nice, right in the middle of town. You will like it.
Me: Ok, I guess that sounds nice.

So we rode around, in circles for all I know, down one street and another. Every once in awhile, picking our landmarks. People sit out on the steps of their houses, within the maze, and I started to get the heebie-jeebies. Then we stop in front of an unmarked house.
Thomas: Ok, this is it.
Me: There is no sign! This isn’t official. We won’t stay here.
Thomas: Oh, no, the sign is being fixed. This is fine, it is my friends. (No longer his Aunt).

A man comes out of the house, and he speaks some English, and together the two men try to convince us to stay there. Having none of it, despite being exhausted, we take off on our bikes. I try to find another casa on the iPhone. I’m pretty sure we were going in circles, and finally I stop in front of a Casa Particular for Cubans. Foreigners aren’t allowed to sleep in them. I ask the owner if he can tell me where we can stay. He makes a phone-call and we wait. Amanda just wants to ride and keep looking. Then a lovely, mature woman shows up, and we follow her to her home.

Ay me! There is no sign outside of her house either! She wants us to put our bicycles into her garage. We’re both tired, and on very much on edge. Amanda waits with the bikes while I go inside to check it out. I’m much more prepared to trust this old woman, than I was of the two hustlers from before. Miriam, the woman, shows me the Casa Particular register, and then leads me to her front door, where, it turns out, is the white and blue sign we had been looking for. All is well, we check in to her Casa, and after a much-needed shower, settle down for a nap.

Amanda writes:
We left San Antonio as quickly as we could. Having not slept the entire night it was very easy to pack up the tent and leave town by 7am. I was hoping we could leave before the policia and his entourage that made us move our tent the night before woke up. We left behind San Antonio and I was just left wondering if all the hoopla surrounding our stay was more for their protection or ours. In the end we left in a safe manner with all of our belongings albeit it tired; so I was happy.

Once arriving in Camaguey and jumping through hoops to find a Casa we were exhausted. The sun took every ounce of our energy. Anyone that knows me is aware that when I’m hot I sweat buckets. The poor woman who welcomed us into our home could see I was terribly hot. Miriam immediately showed me where I could shower and drew all the blinds and cranked the AC for me. I had a cold shower and laid down for a lovely nap. I typically have a hard time napping but not on this day. I was out immediately and slept soundly for an hour. Andrew was dozing off beside me but we decided it was best to get up after an hour so we could sleep at night.

After our nap while roaming the streets of the city and having dinner we talked about our previous day’s adventure to San Antonio. We laughed and played the scenes back to each other with big smiles. We realized that while it was a grand adventure that we don’t necessarily want to repeat any time soon, it was just that; an adventure! We both agreed that we would do it again any time rather than this day of straight plain roads with little to see. Sure it was hard and there were some annoying parts and possibly sketchy characters; but at the end of the day we were safe and didn’t suffer any harm aside from my scraped knee from my bike crash on the farm road. We actually both laughed out loud talking about my total yard sale of a bike crash. I was laying there in a pile of horse and cow shit, with Pablo (my bike) on top of me still clipped in to my pedal.

Miram’s casa and hospitality are precisely what we needed after a day like that. She is a lovely host and her home is very pretty.

Today’s Photographs