Up early and a quick pump up of Tadek’s tyre which is still slowly losing air. We had to re-trace the road from the night before, but with fresh legs and eyes things looked much better. Arrived in Niquero hoping to find coffee, but again no show. This area of Cuba must have a serious shortage or just does not like coffee. Some bread like Pizzas later we were off for our next one-horse town up the coast. The going was easy, with only a slight headwind to face. The towns seemed to pass much more quickly than we had expected even with the ever deteriorating road surface shaking our bones. Even after several stops for refreshments, we had reached our intended destination for the night by 2:30pm. A bad decision was made to cycle on to the next town (another 28kms) in the hope that we would find more buses going to Santiago de Cuba. After a tough end to the journey we had clocked over 100kms. Arriving at the bus station at 17:30 we were told that there were no more buses out of town in our direction that day. A dilemma ensued. The tired city of Manzanillo has 150,000 inhabitants and too many of them seemed to be offering us advice.
We returned to the town square to get something to eat/drink and discuss our options. Some locals offered to help find a Casa Particular for us, but came back stating that everything was full. One offered for us to stay at his home, but Tadek thought that it could be a trap (the police also thought this might be the case later). At 11pm we left out ‘helpers’ telling them we were heading out of town to camp, but really wanting to head to the bus station to camp there in relative safety. We arrived at the station to find it dark and seemingly closed. After shouting at each other and blaming each other for the mess we were in, we decided to head back to town to look for a Casa ourselves. As I was pulling out of the station to catch up with Tadek, someone pulled the back of my bike, cut the bungee strap holding the tent bag and ran off into the darkness into a wooded area as Tadek tried to take chase. The thief disappeared quickly and we were left shocked and homeless.
The police took about 10 minutes to arrive and did nothing to look for the culprit, but merely asked us whether we needed any food or drink. When trying to get help, we actually found out that the bus station was open, but the handles had been removed, probably in order to stop thieves from entering. Some hours later, the police took our statements and found us a nice (but expensive) Casa (over the avg. monthly wage for one night!). Outcome was that we were told that we would have to stay in the town where we had been robbed for at least another 48 hours when the police investigated the case. Now that we have no tent, staying in Cuba is not really a possibility as the state controlled prices for accommodation would break our budget in less than two weeks – it’s cheaper to stay at a budget hotel in France!
We returned to the town square to get something to eat/drink and discuss our options. Some locals offered to help find a Casa Particular for us, but came back stating that everything was full. One offered for us to stay at his home, but Tadek thought that it could be a trap (the police also thought this might be the case later). At 11pm we left out ‘helpers’ telling them we were heading out of town to camp, but really wanting to head to the bus station to camp there in relative safety. We arrived at the station to find it dark and seemingly closed. After shouting at each other and blaming each other for the mess we were in, we decided to head back to town to look for a Casa ourselves. As I was pulling out of the station to catch up with Tadek, someone pulled the back of my bike, cut the bungee strap holding the tent bag and ran off into the darkness into a wooded area as Tadek tried to take chase. The thief disappeared quickly and we were left shocked and homeless.
The police took about 10 minutes to arrive and did nothing to look for the culprit, but merely asked us whether we needed any food or drink. When trying to get help, we actually found out that the bus station was open, but the handles had been removed, probably in order to stop thieves from entering. Some hours later, the police took our statements and found us a nice (but expensive) Casa (over the avg. monthly wage for one night!). Outcome was that we were told that we would have to stay in the town where we had been robbed for at least another 48 hours when the police investigated the case. Now that we have no tent, staying in Cuba is not really a possibility as the state controlled prices for accommodation would break our budget in less than two weeks – it’s cheaper to stay at a budget hotel in France!