Awoke to the perfectly empty tropical beach to ourselves and a passing pig or two. Went for a swim at about 8am, then did our washing and had a shower in the small river that fed into the sea. Could not want for more really. At 10, we set off towards Pilon, the last coastal town before a daunting trip across the Sierra Maestra mountain range. The terrain soon became tougher as we entered the national park. The road disappeared on several occasions; either having been washed away by the sea or where a tunnel had collapsed. The coastal route that we had expected to be fairly flat became increasingly hilly. This is where we discovered that my bike was not quite geared correctly for hill climbs - also my fitness levels were not quite there either! I had to walk several times pushing the heavy bike. On one of our several rest stops in the shade we bumped into a Cuban couple carrying oil home with their rickety old bike. We shared our biscuits with them as they too needed more energy to get to the top of the hill. The tyres of the old bike were ‘reinforced’ with car rubber being sewn over the old tyre – master craftsmanship.
The villages dotted along the route turned out to be nothing more than a few clustered houses, with no commerce at all excepting a TV room that served the nearby communities. Redevelopment work after Hurricane Dennis had supplied some of the wooded houses with solar panels to generate energy. Unfortunately for us, this meant nowhere to restock on bottled water, or to buy snacks along the route. It was strange to see such beautiful coastline with fantastic beaches and very little development. It is as pretty as the South of France, but with a tiny proportion of its inhabitants. We arrived in Pilon expecting another interesting small town, but discovered a bit of a hell hole with nothing to offer – especially food wise. The people were at least friendly. Disappointed we headed out of town to find somewhere to camp. On the way we worked out the reason why none of the cafes in town had any food to offer – bread had run out! The Cubans seem to eat everything with bread, so when there is none, the cafes don’t offer food at all. We stopped at the last kiosk on the edge of town to see what he had. He said he had nothing, but we realised that he had just cooked himself an omelette (tortilla) to go with his last bread roll. He agreed to cook us the omelettes so at least we managed to get something to eat for the day.
The villages dotted along the route turned out to be nothing more than a few clustered houses, with no commerce at all excepting a TV room that served the nearby communities. Redevelopment work after Hurricane Dennis had supplied some of the wooded houses with solar panels to generate energy. Unfortunately for us, this meant nowhere to restock on bottled water, or to buy snacks along the route. It was strange to see such beautiful coastline with fantastic beaches and very little development. It is as pretty as the South of France, but with a tiny proportion of its inhabitants. We arrived in Pilon expecting another interesting small town, but discovered a bit of a hell hole with nothing to offer – especially food wise. The people were at least friendly. Disappointed we headed out of town to find somewhere to camp. On the way we worked out the reason why none of the cafes in town had any food to offer – bread had run out! The Cubans seem to eat everything with bread, so when there is none, the cafes don’t offer food at all. We stopped at the last kiosk on the edge of town to see what he had. He said he had nothing, but we realised that he had just cooked himself an omelette (tortilla) to go with his last bread roll. He agreed to cook us the omelettes so at least we managed to get something to eat for the day.