Woken up by early by the noise of villagers waiting for the first bus /gua gua/ out of town. Nevertheless, the sea view beach location of our tent was absolutely great and semi wild horses strolling along did not bother us at all. The man we had drank with last night arrived as promised at 6:30 and served us some over roasted strong coffee. The beach’s grand cafeteria, or should I say massive complex of lovely developed socialist style space with lots of workers doing nothing, had opened and we could buy some Cuban breakfast items. An interesting touch was the fact that you could buy alcohol and cigarettes 24 hours a day in a near by bar run by the Campismo - bearing in mind that there is absolutely no, or near enough no, tourists in town at this time of the year - Bizarre!
The trip back in to main town 26 km up the road was a bit of a hard graft against the wind and we had to cheat by jumping on the back of the lorry. 80 euro cents later - bargain/- we had an ice cream in San Juan y Martinez then carried on our fight against the wind and time to get to Pinar del Rio on time for our booked bus to Havana. Also had to collect our 50 pre-ordered of top quality thin rolled cigars from 6th Terminal area of town.
En route we met two English or should I say British cyclists hacking along with half the amount of weight on their bikes as ours. They were on three week tour with some friends (who were waiting for them in Viniales having decided not to tacked the mountainous section of Pinar province). We picked up our cigars and popped into the Guayabita factory in Pinar fo buy a couple of bottles of their finest product.
The 15 minutes speedy lunch in a “Marina” restaurant was later regretted with belly ache etc. The Cubanatour office (where we had reserved the bus) was absolutely empty and the lady told us to wait up to 30 mins for the bus. I wandered off several times buying sweets and dodgy Cuban music. An hour and a half later, the bus arrived and we left in high comfort for Havana city. Passing through as ummer storm and 160km of empty motorway, we arrived in the posh parts of Havana “Avenue of Presidents” where we searched for the same place we had stayed in 2 months ago. Bingo, the place was empty but the price had suffered some severed inflation. We bargained and managed to knock off five CUC. Shower, new clothes and I went for a glimpse of Havana at night, leaving Teresa to deal with her Deli belly and headache after our dodgy food.
Beer, cigars and Cuba Lbre, strolled in wobbly fashion back home.
The trip back in to main town 26 km up the road was a bit of a hard graft against the wind and we had to cheat by jumping on the back of the lorry. 80 euro cents later - bargain/- we had an ice cream in San Juan y Martinez then carried on our fight against the wind and time to get to Pinar del Rio on time for our booked bus to Havana. Also had to collect our 50 pre-ordered of top quality thin rolled cigars from 6th Terminal area of town.
En route we met two English or should I say British cyclists hacking along with half the amount of weight on their bikes as ours. They were on three week tour with some friends (who were waiting for them in Viniales having decided not to tacked the mountainous section of Pinar province). We picked up our cigars and popped into the Guayabita factory in Pinar fo buy a couple of bottles of their finest product.
The 15 minutes speedy lunch in a “Marina” restaurant was later regretted with belly ache etc. The Cubanatour office (where we had reserved the bus) was absolutely empty and the lady told us to wait up to 30 mins for the bus. I wandered off several times buying sweets and dodgy Cuban music. An hour and a half later, the bus arrived and we left in high comfort for Havana city. Passing through as ummer storm and 160km of empty motorway, we arrived in the posh parts of Havana “Avenue of Presidents” where we searched for the same place we had stayed in 2 months ago. Bingo, the place was empty but the price had suffered some severed inflation. We bargained and managed to knock off five CUC. Shower, new clothes and I went for a glimpse of Havana at night, leaving Teresa to deal with her Deli belly and headache after our dodgy food.
Beer, cigars and Cuba Lbre, strolled in wobbly fashion back home.