Buses, Tanks and a Bay of Pigs


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Published: January 31st 2013
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Havana to Playa Giron


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Street view
Day 453 Sunday 6th January

Up at 7 and finishing off our packing, before hoisting our bags and preparing to leave our Havana home. We checked out at 8 and it looked as if we had dragged poor Lisette out of bed. Yesterday she had done some laundry for us and we later discovered that Grandma had actually done it and by hand and when we checked out she wasn’t going to charge us for it….god if only all our accommodation had been this good. Of course we gave her some extra for this service, I mean poor Grandma has not only had to do laundry but also let us in at midnight, she deserved something. Our bus was leaving from the Seville hotel, which was a ten minute walk and with full back packs is always a good heart starter.

Got down to the hotel and then proceeded to wait for our 8.30 bus that didn’t turn up till 9.15. As usual the bus was travelling all over town picking up tourists from all the hotels and of course we were one of the last. We were travelling with a bus company called
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Fill her up
Transtur, which we think is fairly new as it is not mentioned in the Lonely Planet, but has buses everywhere and seems only to cater for International tourists. Before leaving the city the conductor got up and told us where we were heading and all the scheduled stops, it all seemed very professional. About two hours out from Havana we stopped for a quick toilet stop and then we were told we would have a food stop in an hour. The next stop rather than being an hour was closer to 20 minutes away, which suited us fine as we were starving as we hadn’t had breakfast. We stopped at a small roadside diner and after some difficulties got a ham and cheese sandwich on bread shaped like a crocodile…rather odd.

Another 30 minutes down the road and we came to our destination, the town of Cienfuegos. Part of the service with Casa Particulars is that they arrange to pick you up from where the bus drops you off and so when we arrived we had a lovely guy who helped us with our bags and gave us a ride in his Lada. People often wonder why there are
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Horse and cart meets semi-trailer bus
so many old American cars in Cuba but when you realise the Cuban peoples only other choice was the Russian made Lada you can probably understand that most would choose a 58 Custom Royale. The Lada to put it as nicely as possible is a heap of shit, and our chariot today had holes in the floor where all the exhaust fumes came in and struggled all the way with our weight in it, to the point I felt that maybe I should hop out and walk alongside. Our driver was great and as we went along he was able to point out all the local sites and the exhaustive and exhausting journey cost us 4 CUC’s, 2 for the journey and 2 for the wait as our bus was late…seemed fair.

In Cienfuegos we are staying in the home of Alberto, and it is located about a fifteen minute walk (or a twenty minute ride in a Lada) from the centre of town. On arrival Alberto sat us down and we had to sign off some Government paperwork and then he went through all that we could see in the area, and how to get there. This too
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Cuban Tank
is all part of the service when staying at a Casa Particular, and again it had us wondering why we so rarely got this sort of service when travelling around the rest of the world. Because it was a Sunday we just knew nothing would be open in the centre of town and so we headed out on a long walk to Punta Gorda, which used to be the rich end of town. Cienfuegos is a port town on the edge of a huge bay that is ringed unfortunately by lots of industry. Punta Gorda sits on a long narrow peninsula that juts into the bay and although it was a long hot walk in the blazing sun, there was a nice sea breeze blowing and there were plenty to see including some grand old mansions. Right at the end of the peninsula was a leafy park with a kiosk you could buy the “best mojito in Cuba”, something we have heard endlessly but yet too experience. Todays “best mojito” was okay and it was a nice way to cool down before our long walk back.

Back near our hotel were small open air bars selling beer on tap
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Our crocodile sandwich
so we stopped once again to cool down with what ended up being a 50c beer that tasted like donkey piss…god it was awful. When we got back to the hotel we met John who was another house guest who was from Canada and stays with Alberto at least three times a year. Apparently of Cuba’s 2 million tourists every year, 500,000 come from Canada, and talking to John we sort of guess that most come trying to escape the harsh winter. For dinner we went to a small restaurant two blocks from the house that was nice but a bit of a rip-off. A lot of restaurants in Cuba we have discovered don’t have menus and the waiter will just tell you what they have and it ends up being a bit of a leap of faith that they don’t overcharge. It has fairly much worked out okay for us till tonight when we were hit a bit heavier than expected. Most meals in Cuba have only cost us around $15 =$30 and that includes drinks, but tonight’s was $42….won’t be going back there again.



Day 454 Monday 7th January
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Middle Eastern mansion

It is always great waking up in a new town and knowing you have the day ahead to just wander and explore. Our hotel had offered to make us breakfast for 5 CUC’s each but we thought it would be nicer to find a café downtown. Cienfuegos was founded by the French in 1819, and the most notable event to have occurred here is a 1957 naval mutiny that the then dictator Batista crushed ruthlessly having most mutineers shot. However what puts Cienfuegos on the map for Cubans and a lot of others is that this is where the legendary Cuban singer Benny More was born back in 1919. He came to fame in the 1940’s and on top of having a set of golden tonsils was revered for his ability to sing a variety of musical styles that ensured that everyone would love him. On top of having restaurants in town named after him they have a great bronze statue of him striding down the main drag as if he was off to the next gig.

The centre of the town sits around a lovely plaza called Parque Jose Marti and is ringed by beautifully restored buildings. As
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Looking out over the bay
stated before the Cuban Government started on a programme to restore the old town centre of Havana and is now rolling the same idea out to all the other cities throughout Cuba. All around town there were signs showing the areas they are trying to preserve, the main buildings they are targeting for restoration and the future plans to push out the boundaries of what needs to be done. The whole city is just filled with all these lovely old buildings, some restored, most in desperate need of work, whilst others are just hanging in there, waiting to be blown over.

Cienfuegos is a really pretty little city except we soon discovered that they don’t have much in the way of eateries and it took us a while before we found a café that could serve us coffee. The place did have some nice souvenir shops though with a good variety of stuff and also a small crafts market. After our brekkie which of course included live music we went in search of trying to get bus tickets out of town, but had no luck with the locals just sending us off running around in circles. Ended up spotting
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Main Street
a Government internet office and so ducked in to try and put our next blog together, Had everything on a memory stick but soon discovered we are not allowed to paste and copy from it or for that matter anything else off the net…boy these guys take their security seriously.

Had another good walk around town before heading back to our home where Alberto told us that the only way we could get tickets was from the bus station, 14 blocks away from the direction we had just come from…oh well back we go again.

He warned us that the office in the bus terminal would perhaps only open around the time the bus arrived which was at 4.30. Got down there at 3.45 and sat there for an hour before anyone turned up to open the office. A large scrum of tourists was waiting and once we got served he could only make a reservation for us and we would need to return tomorrow to buy the tickets. Of all the countries we have travelled through so far Cuba has by far the oddest work ethics. Until fairly recently every business was owned and run by the
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Peak time
Government and so everyone who worked was working for and being paid for by the Government. Heard a great Cuban adage that “the Government pretends to pay us, so we pretend to work” and that sort of sums up some of the establishments we have been too. Of late the Government has allowed people to run their own businesses, and sell produce and even their homes, and providing they pay taxes it is okay. Of course all these changes are coming in baby steps but I think anything faster than that could be disastrous to a nation caught back in 1959. Everywhere you look in the cities you see people in doorways selling stuff, like food, drinks, Rum and knick knacks, all in an effort to get on board this new freedom and make more money.

With our reservation scrawled down in some tatty note book at the bus station, we sort of felt half happy that we had half of something and so we walked back to our home for a short rest. For dinner we ended up at an Italian restaurant where we got a large feed with drinks for 17CUC’s…bargain.



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Palacio de Gobierno
style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Day 455 Tuesday 8th January

Up at 7.30 and packing for our move today. Checked out at 9 and we got a lift to the bus station with Eduardo who was the driver who picked us up when we first arrived. Really lovely guy but we sort of guess he is doing something he shouldn’t be doing as he couldn’t drop us at the station but two blocks away and he carried Shelley’s bag for her. The whole walk he kept saying “You must have rocks in here, how do you carry this?” Cost us 3CUC’s for the delivery service and then we had to wait for our bus. Just about every bus station we have been to on this trip has operated differently and today was yet another new experience. This was one of the more shambolic operations but in the end we were on our bus and leaving town.

Our bus was a new Korean thing with air conditioning which was a far cry from the local buses which were nothing more than an old Chev truck with everyone standing on the back. Yesterday we actually spotted a large semitrailer converted into carrying people,
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Arco de Triunfo & Casa de la Cultura Benjamin Duarte
perhaps the most perfect example of cattle class. The road from Havana to Cienfuegos had been a huge 6 lane highway for most of the way but the road today was a very narrow potholed road and so the journey was very slow and took us nearly 2 hours to travel the approx. 100kms.

When we arrived at our destination of Playa Giron we were greeted by Mario Garcia Rodriguez, who is the owner of our new home “Mayito”. He helped us with our bags and drove us the short distance to where we would be staying and then went through the paperwork we needed to sign and then all the sites to see in the area. We decided to eat at his home tonight as this town is very small and not a lot in the way of food options. After our discussions we got into our swimmers and headed for the beach, but before getting there we had two important things to do. Firstly we stopped at a small bar where we could pick up a cheap sandwich, hadn’t had breakfast or lunch so we were feeling a bit peckish. The second thing was to visit the
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Statue in Parque Jose Marti
small town museum dedicated to the events that happened here back in April 1961, which the Cubans call the Battle of Giron but just about everyone else in the world knows as the “Bay of Pigs Fiasco”.

To start with the “Bay of Pigs” comes from the bay called Bahia de Cochinos, which is Spanish for “Bay of Pigs”, and the battle that occurred here could possibly go down as one of the stupidest ideas in CIA history. Soon after Castro took power in 1959 a large number of the rich elite in Cuba fled to the USA where they started (and continue to this day) pressure the US Government on action against the Fidel Government, What has followed has been perhaps the most pointless embargo in history along with 50 or so assassination attempts on Castro but the bay of Pigs was perhaps the lowest point where the US Government supplied and supported approx. 1400 Cuban exiles in an invasion attempt to overthrow the Castro Government. The whole thing was compromised from the start by a Castro spy within the CIA and then once the guys hit the beach at Giron they were quickly outnumbered and overwhelmed within
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Local buses
three days. The death toll from both sides was about 400 and all the guys that were captured were shipped back to the US, less all their American supplied guns and tanks. The then President John Kennedy gave approval to the whole stunt and then once things started going bad for the would-be invaders basically left them in the lurch and tried to distance himself from the whole thing. Rather than eradicating Fidel it only made him even more popular with the people and gave him concrete proof that the USA was enemy number one.

The small museum details the events leading up to, and during those days of combat and is filled with lots of photos with both Spanish and English titles. As would be expected the rhetoric is a bit full on with lots of “Imperialistic US” and “Heroic Socialist Cuban” but hey they have a right to carry on a bit. Out the front of the museum are some great soviet tanks and a Sea Fury fighter plane that was used to sink some of the landing ships. Out the back are a captured tank, truck and remnants of an enemy bomber.

From the museum
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The old buildings
we walked down to the beach and discovered they had sort of enclosed the bay in some sort of half concrete dam. Not sure if this was to foil any further landings or is some sort of pedestrian walkway. Either way the whole thing is old and falling apart. The beach here wasn’t much so we wandered around the bay to another that was a bit clearer but was more shell than sand so it was a bit hard on the feet. We had a swim for an hour or two before wandering back into town and onto home.

Mario and his wife Mercedes cooked up a great dinner for us, I had chicken and Shelley went Lobster…that’s right lobster. Chicken cost 8CUC and the lobster 10CUC so you can understand why she went it, came with a bean soup, salad and potato chips, so not bad for the money. Mario is yet again another lovely Cuban and was able to help us organise our snorkelling trip tomorrow.



Day 456 Wednesday 9th January

We woke up to an amazing breakfast of fresh fruit, pancakes, omelette
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Old car in front of Parque Jose Marti
and sausage and there is only the two of us staying here. We ate up everything as today we are going snorkelling so we get our strength…..well that is our excuse. Got down to the bus stop which is outside the town’s only hotel and at 9.15am the bus turned up and the driver said he was going to the Celeta Buena beach first at 9.30am which is in the opposite direction and would be back at 10am to go in our direction. We were still standing there deciding what to do for 45 minutes when he said “Do you want to hop on for the ride?”, why not. We picked up other people and got a scenic drive along the coast to a nice looking beach before heading back through town going the roundabout way picking up more passengers. Silly us got off the bus a stop too early at Punto Perdiz but it turned out to be a great mistake. We walked across to the huts near the water and there were only a few other people there and the water was this amazing clear blue colour. We hired snorkel gear and jumped straight into the water which
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Old car in front of Teatro Tomas Terry
is not cold so I (Shelley) was in my element. This is not the Barrier Reef or Galapagos but there is coral, lots of colourful fish and tiny clear jellyfish so we swam for ages before lying in the sun and jumping back in. The day was spent in and out of the water having fantastic time and it only got busy for an hour when a tourist bus came and people quickly got into the water and then they were gone. We got out of the water about 3.20pm to dry out a bit before the bus came to pick us up back at the road at 4.00pm.

The bus is a shuttle service to the beaches it runs a few times a day and only costs 3CUCs return plus the driver is really nice, when he dropped us off and saw us walking up the road he stopped and asked if we needed a lift. We declined as we were stopping at the small group of shops just up the road but it shows how nice people are here.

We got a drink at a small bar and more water and then walked across the paddock
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Casa de la Cultura Benjamin Duarte
back to the Casa. As we wandered down our street everyone was out talking to each other, kids were playing, an old guy was pedalling his push bike from house to house selling radishes, it just felt like what all societies should be like. We got home and had to have a shower and wash the salt water from our swimmers before dinner. All the meals here are served in the backyard at a table which has a small roof, it is a lovely setting and it is great to get such a varied choice for dinner. Tonight we are having fish which were two fillets each and this was served with a huge plate of fried rice, salad and freshly made banana chips all of which were delicious. This casa should be a restaurant the meals here are better than the restaurants we have eaten in so we are definitely being spoilt. This morning we had got Mercedes to make a booking at a Casa in our next destination Trinidad, and now we are sort of regretting it because we would just love to stay here a couple more days. Mario’s Casa is just so good, the food is
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Palacio de Gobierno
sensational, and the snorkelling incredible….a really amazing corner of the world.


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Waterfront
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Street markets
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Line of Taxis
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Statue of Benny More
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Sea Fury fighter plane
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Tank used in Bay of Pigs battle
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Sea wall


31st January 2013

Cuba
So the travellers are now in the Caribbean. Does that mean you have completed your mapping of South America and are now mapping Central America and/or the Caribbean? Sorry I've been away myself so not in touch since the New Year.
31st January 2013

OMG ... so jealous!!!
Please stop having so much fun because we definitely can't make it there :) Great to hear you're having an amazing time though!!! We're in Pucon at the moment but Ken is sick in bed, so we haven't done much yet. I'm contemplating doing a bike ride today but it's 10am already and I'm also still in bed. Hmmm ... to go and do some exercise, or to stay in bed ... it's a tough choice!
1st February 2013

hey!!!
Great to hear your having a relaxing, enjoyable time. Ahhhh.... the Caribbean. Cuba looks and feels chilled out. Sounds like the perfect wind down after 15mths on the road. The people sound lovely, as do the home stays. Nothing like good home cooking and plenty of it! I do love the american cars...I think I want one? strange croc sandwhich?, looks sort of tasty though. xx

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