The bikes had received a bit of a battering on the train as it crashed and bashed its way through the countryside. The baggage handlers had also been playing with the gears resulting in repairs being necessary to be able to ride into town. Arrived in the main square to find a café open, so had a couple of strong black coffees when we read about the town that we had accidentally arrived in. Too tired to think, we were ripped off by 3 young lads wanting us to change 10 CUC into 2 x 5 CUC notes. The 10 that we received was fake. In Santa Clare there was a mausoleum to Che Guevara that was not open on Mondays, a very poor cathedral and a Cuban cigar factory to visit. The cigar factory tour was interesting even as we were joined by 18 elderly Canadian (and Americans who could not say that they were American). Headed out of town on way to Cienfuegos past the closed mausoleum. At last we could see people working on the land and producing food – the area around Havana and Matanzas was totally uncultivated and no fresh fruit or vegetables seemed to be available. Intended to camp before getting to Cienfuegos but everything was farmed, so we ended up cycling into the centre of the town and finding ourselves a Casa Particular. The manager was of Polish decent – his grandfather was a Jew who had left Poland in 1928 to the US, but ended up in Cuba in 1935. The manager had studied political science and worked (in some capacity that we could not work out) for the army. His explained that the current situation in Cuba suited everyone – Raul Castro and the government could blame the poor economy on the US blockade, the US could excuse themselves from lifting the embargo on the fact that the revolutionary socialist government was still in power, and the 3 million Cubans in the US were not going to get sent back.
Teresa and TadekInexperienced cycle tourists of Cuba, Costa Rica, Panama, Nicaragua, Thailand, Laos & Cambodia Categories
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