Diving in the Bay of Pigs

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After three attempts at leaving Havana I managed to get a bus out to the Bay of Pigs. The first two attempts by train failed - there´s an electric train that goes four times a day that I just missed because I got an eye infection and had to go on a mission to find antibiotic eye drops (it´s better now), the regular train turned out to be a major mission in itself - I'd never have found the ticket office if a Swedish journalist hadn't spotted me looking puzzled in the station and helped me find the office in a separate building 10 min walk away... The first train they could get me on was at 9pm, and I didn't fancy arriving in Matanzas at midnight (or later, since the trains are a bit sketchy), so I hopped in a Moskvich taxi and headed for the tourist bus station - and everything fell into place. There was a bus 30 minutes later with space, heading for Santiago via a few other places, so I decided to skip Matanzas and head straight for the Bay of Pigs.

The process of trying to get out of Havana involved three taxis - and of course my favourite was the completely fucked 1950 Chevrolet, with no side windows and a windscreen held together with parcel tape, that wheezed and clunked its way through the tunnel to Casablanca. Once I discovered there wasn´t another electric train until 5pm (the main point of doing this route is because it's scenic, and sunset is at 5.30) finding a taxi back took about 45 minutes. I ended up wedged into a Polski-Fiat 126. The third was the Moskvich, which just reminded me of eastern Europe 10 years ago. After the bus dropped me off at the motorway junction (and don't get me started on the wonders of Cuba's motorway driving) I got a fourth taxi - this one an almost perfectly preserved 1955 Chevy (albeit with a diesel engine) with a brand-new CD player installed.

The highlight of the Bay of Pigs was the diving - my first ever dive, and from what a Swiss guy who dived with me said it was a pretty good dive. Loads of interesting corals, fish and a wrecked boat (I don't think it was part of the invasion force!). I may be taking a diving certification course in Texas next month - not sure if I should tell them where I've dived before...

I'm now in Cienfuegos, 'Pearl of the South' - and it's not a lie either, this is a very pleasant, laid-back city with many well-kept buildings. As usual though if you head more than a block or two off the main drags you find grinding poverty.

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Photos

Pro diver
I survived!

Comments

[El]

Sounds like fun
You sound as though you are having the most incredible journeys. Your descriptions are very atmospheric. But surely nothing can beat travelling to MPW through snarled up traffic every morning, arriving irritated to start another fabulously entertaining day solving simple IT queries......? To make you laugh (or despair perhaps): Speaking of [simple IT queries], our IT manager must think that I am a complete airhead. I have a new laptop (yippee!) which I have been using for a few weeks, though they only set up the docking station and screen to go with it on Monday. I took the laptop home to do some work and thought that I'd broken it. Rather than letters U I O P J K L M working, they were numbers and I couldn't figure out why. I didn't notice the little blue numbers on the keys as I never look at the keyboard when typing........ Email back from my IT Manager told me to take num lock off. I eventually figured out how to do that on the laptop (by looking at the manual) and subsequently realised that if I had left it docked then it would have been much easier.......... I'm getting there, slowly!