Cuba!

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So since we did not have access to phones for photos or ease of access to the internet, I have put together some trip notes and details to summarize our amazing trip to Cuba with our bikes!

Here are the overall stats:


• trip was from 6/3-6/21
• total distance biked - 815km or 509 miles
• number of flats - 4(Alyssa), 0(Andrew)
• pizzas consumed - 20-30
• longest distance in a day - 170km or 107 miles
• number of days on the bikes - 11
• average speed - 20-24km/hour or 12-14 m/hour



June 3

Left home around 8pm, got to the airport, checked in and said hasta luego to the bicycles...

June 4

We arrived in Mexico City around 5am, had to go through immigration, retrieve the bikes, transport them to a different floor, get them wrapped in blue plastic wrap and re-check in the oversized baggage area! Wow, that was a lot of work, but we did it and again bid farewell to our bikes in hopes of seeing them soon. Then we made our way back through immigration and then figured out all the forms we needed to fill out as Americans traveling to Cuba. There was a big shuffle at the boarding gate, but thankfully we had paid attention and had filled out all the extra forms accurately, so we breezed on up to the front of the line and boarded the plane. We arrived in Havana around 2pm, it took over an hour for the bikes to come out, but sure enough they arrived and we headed outside to look for our taxi. We finally found the driver that we had prearranged for and exchanged some money (and ouch that 10% off the top for having US$ sure hurt, but not much one can do). We met our driver and he went to get his car, we had no idea what it would look like, but when a big black Russian limo-like vehicle approached, I crossed my fingers that it was our car, and it was! The boxes with the bikes slid nicely in the space where the middle row of seats would have been and I sat behind them. We arrived in Habana Centro about 30 minutes later and checked in to our first Casa Particular of the trip. We explored the city a bit and then put our bikes together before falling asleep.


June 5

We spent all day exploring Havana on foot. It rained off and on most of the day, but thankfully the huge, historic buildings are mostly multi-story with balconies or awnings that we could hide under. Overall a great day wandering the streets of Havana. Initial thoughts: people are so friendly, the buildings beautiful, the colorful old cars super neat and in general a fun, vibrant place.

June 6

Super long bike day... We went from Havana to Australia, with a few wrong turns and a couple of side roads, the total distance around 160km. It was hot, fighting wind the whole day, mostly along the Autopista - not ideal, but fast and totally safe. When we arrived in Australia after 10 hours in the saddle, 12 hours after leaving Havana, we were soaked (sweat and rain), exhausted and oh the pain. We checked into a sort of weird little 'motel' with peasant style cabins and were greeted by a snake that quickly left the room. We ate dinner, hung our clothes out in an attempt to dry them and passed out.

June 7

It hurt getting on our bikes... but we were motivated by the next destination, Playa Larga. So after a big breakfast, variety of fruits, bread, ham, cheese, eggs, juice and coffee (very typical breakfast), we mounted the bikes and hit the road. About 30km later, we reached Playa Larga. We asked around at a number of Casas before settling on Casa Mesa in the little town of Caleton. We spent the rest of the day walking around, eating pizza, reading and enjoying our beachfront deck.

June 8

Back in the saddle... The water was a bit murky in Playa Larga (due to passing storms), so we decided to get back on the road and find some real Caribbean hued waters. 35km down the road, we found exactly that at Playa Giron. About half way there, we stopped at a really cool little spot, Cueva de los Peces - 'a flooded tectontic fault on the inland side of the road' - basically a big, deep swimming hole. So we did a quick deck change and jumped in - so refreshing and beautiful! We arrived in Playa Giron just after noon and found a pizza stand. We ate pizza and drank refresco and happened to meet a British girl that referred us to a nearby Casa - Casa Sebastien y Caridad. We settled into our room, cooled down a bit and headed to a beach for the rest of the day.

June 9

No bike riding today! It was a much needed rest day. We got picked up by a big truck, turned bus in the morning for Andrew's scuba trip. Andrew and a group of other people got outfitted to dive and we headed off to a nearby dive site, Cenote Mar. While Andrew enjoyed 2 plunges deep into the water, I sat on the rocky edge, jumping in the deep, crystal clear water and swimming around. Really clear water, lots of fish and a bright sunny day. After returning to town, we ate pizza and then stopped at a different stall for jugo de tamarindo - this was literally the best beverage of the trip. Ice crystals in the first couple of sips and the sweet, sour taste of tamarind, truly refreshing. After cooling off in the room a bit, we spent the rest of the day sitting on the main beach.

June 10

Feeling adventurous, we decided to head to our next destination via a road for which we had no maps. We got some simple directions from a local person and understood the basics, always try to stay close to the sea. Since we were heading East, this meant any right turns we happened across, we should investigate and consider taking. Being intelligent people, we thought, sure our road bikes with slightly bigger tires should be able to do an all dirt/gravel/sand ride, so we set out on what we assumed to be, the correct route, around 7:15am. Well the ride was awesome, a bit bumpy, but really fun in a sort of "where the hell are we/why did we think this was a good idea" kind of way. I got a flat early on, but we were able to change the tube pretty quickly and get back on the trail. The highlight of the ride was around 11am - we came across a right turn and Andrew said, "we better go this way, either it will lead us to a dead-end at the sea or it will be the correct way," so off we went and holy cow we happened upon the most stunning of swimming holes. Where the path ended, there was a little inlet on the sea, protected by rocky cliffs about 10-15 high except for a narrow passage, the water was crystal clear and even better, there was a ladder made of lashed together tree branches coming out of the sea and up the cliff in one spot. I immediately climbed on to the ladder to test its sturdiness and it supported my weight, so we jumped in! Thanks to my freakishly long arms and climbing skills, I was able to safely climb out, Andrew relied on a wave pushing him a little closer and his height. After resting a few more minutes we got back on the trail. Somehow after about 65km, we ended up at our targeted destination, Castillo de Jagua around 2pm, so we sat at a little restaurant enjoying the view and drinking a cold beverage before boarding a ferry with our bikes for Cienfuegos. After arriving in Cienfuegos we found a Casa near the main square, showered and hit the town. We explored the streets by foot, sat along the malecon wall drinking a beer with the locals, ate dinner and then treated ourselves to some ice cream, which happened to be the nastiest ice cream ever. After the gross ice cream we decided to call it a night and headed back to the Casa.

June 11

In a hope to avoid the hottest part of the day, we got up pretty early and headed out on the bikes towards Trinidad. The ride was beautiful, rolling green hills (finally something other than flat), lush farms, lots of local people on bikes, on foot and on horse carts. We stopped for some much needed food and refresco limon at a little roadside restaurant around 11am. We continued on our way... as we made our way back to the coast, the roads flattened, the wind picked up, the heat became intense and a series of flat tires for me began. Not one, not two, but three flats in a matter of 2 hours. After 90km on the road, we were hot, exhausted, and so stinky by the time we arrived in Trinidad around 3pm. In any other circumstances arriving to the cute little town, up high on a hill of cobbled streets would have been so charming, however in our exhausted, sore states it just sucked. So we pushed our bikes up the hill and when we found shade near what looked like a center of a town, we collapsed on someone's stoop for a bit. Andrew found us a Casa, we moved our stuff in and rinsed off the days grime. We blasted the AC and cooled down for a while. With a more refreshed view on things, we headed out to explore and found an amazingly charming city, filled with Cuban music, winding cobbled streets, beautiful architecture and enough shade to make walking around in the heat bearable. We ended our evening sitting at a table set up outside on some steps listening to live music and enjoying some beverages.

June 12

No bike riding today! We enjoyed a much needed rest day exploring the streets of Trinidad, sitting on our roof terrace reading and just all around taking it easy.

June 13

We got an early start for what we knew would be a tough ride. We had decided to ride up and over the Sierra del Escambray mountains to go from Trinidad to Santa Clara. We expected super challenging, we did not, however, expect 14-15%!g(MISSING)raded ascents. So yeah, we walked, a lot... probably pushed our bikes (with all our luggage, so very heavy) up hills for about 3 miles in total. That may not sound like a lot, but it was steep, hot and strenuous. The good news - after the 2nd view point the ride was literally as Andrew expressed maybe his favorite ride of all time. Up and down long roller coaster sections of the road, winding through a valley, passing waterfalls, small creeks, rural landscapes and lush tropical forest. All in all it was a really great ride, we rode (and pushed the bikes) about 90km through some of the most stunning landscape I have seen. We arrived in Santa Clara around 2pm, found a Casa and did our normal arrival routine - cold shower, drink water, wash the stinkiest of the clothes in the sink, hang things up to dry, and sit in AC to cool down. We explored the city in the evening and relaxed in our lovely Casa's interior courtyard.

June 14

No bike riding today! We went for a long walk to see the big Che museum, mausoleum and gardens. Pretty interesting stuff and while it was a hot walk about 2km from where we were staying, our legs (and butts) appreciated walking for a change. We walked around the city most of the day and hid from the intermittent torrential downpours under building overhangs with the local people. We walked past a cigar making factory and were able to peek inside to get a glimpse. After dinner at a local place, we sat in the Parque Vidal and listened to a group of locals playing classical music.

June 15

Well, I'd like to call our ride bad planning, however I can't because we were fully aware that there would not likely be any places for foreigners to stay in our intended destination, but we went for it anyway and decided to just deal with whatever came our way in the moment. Oh boy, that made for a very long ride. We rode about 170km in total. Our original destination was the city of Colon which would have been about 120km, a little long, but not too bad. When we asked local people and tried to research places to stay in Colon, we came up with nothing. So instead of changing our route, we went for it with fingers crossed. The ride was mostly flat, lots of people and small towns to pass through. We arrived in Colon around 12:30pm and after asking and looking around and literally being directed back to the same place 3 times (the place was a closed hotel), we decided to suck it up and press on to Cardenas. About an hour into the second leg of the day, the rain started, and the thunder and the lightning... we hid out at a gas station for almost an hour. When I could count past 10 between lightning and thunder and the rain slowed, we headed back out. We made it about another hour and then it picked up again. We found a small bus stop shelter on the side of the road and sat there with the frogs and overwhelming smell of urine for another half an hour or so. We had wasted a lot of time waiting for rain to stop, so finally I decided that we had better just get our butts on our bikes and ride, rain or not. Wouldn't you know it, the rain stopped about 10 minutes into our riding. We made it to Cardenas around 6pm, it took a while to find a Casa, but when we did we were greeted with the ever present Cuban friendliness and hospitality and we settled right in. The family made us dinner, went to a store for us (for beer) and were very nice! I think our disgustingly dirty, muddy, stinky presentation may have elicited pity...

June 16

Short ride today, thank goodness. We got up, ate breakfast, realized that Andrew was not feeling well and hit the road for our short ride, only about 20km, to Varadero. We arrived before noon, found a Casa with a lovely garden and spacious apartment for us and we made ourselves at home. We rested indoors and in the garden most of the day, we were pretty exhausted (and Andrew sick) from our long ride the previous day.

June 17 and 18

No bike riding days. These were supposed to be our reward beach days near the end of the trip, something we always like to do, however Andrew spent most of it coughing, blowing his nose and laying down in the AC room. We ventured out a couple of times to the stunning, fine white sand beach and I went for quite a few small walks and one short bike ride down the peninsula. Our main goal, other than relaxing, was to work on getting rid of our awful biker tan lines - white hands, tan from the wrist to the shoulder, white shoulders... you get it - and we did okay on that front.

June 19

We decided on Playa Jibacoa as our last stop before Havana. We rode 75km and found just what we were looking for, a picture perfect white sand beach, lots of local people and not a thing to do but relax and play in the sun and sand. We ended up splurging for an all-inclusive resort, but we went with the cheaper of the two which assured we would be staying with Cuban people and eating Cuban food and not just surrounded by other tourists. We spent the day sitting poolside with a beverage, listening to the blaring pop music, watching the kids and people play in the water, swimming in the ocean, sitting on the beach and eating! Perfect.

June 20

Our final ride was 60km along the Northern coast. Another visually pleasing ride, mostly right along the water with a few rolling ups and downs. We found our way to a ferry in the factory town of Casa Blanca and made our way to Havana by boat. We rode our final couple of kilometers along the Malecon in Havana and when we turned down the street to our Casa, we had the most amazing finish to the ride. Two brightly painted 1950s looking convertibles, in each were 3 young men (well-dressed, greased hair, handsome fellas) sitting on the back with fancy drivers and scantily clad ladies and then were singing while a car in front of them was filming. So maybe, just maybe, the end of our journey was captured in the music video of a Cuban boy band!

We spent the afternoon wandering around, ate dinner in a little alcove off a main square and enjoyed some live music before returning to our Casa to take apart our bikes for the journey home.

June 21

Our cab picked us up at 4am, we loaded my bike in the vehicle and strapped Andrew's to the top. We had a long layover in Mexico City, so after whole ordeal of customs, immigration and re-checking the bikes, we made our way into the city via metro and spent the afternoon in the Coyoacan neighborhood. After chilaquiles, micheladas and tacos al pastor, we were ready to head back to the airport. We got home around 9pm, the bikes made it, we didn't lie at immigration and there were no issues!



A successful trip and an excellent new experience for our travels!

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Photos

well used map
Our ride is in purple, stars indicate places we stayed.

Russian Limo
It may be blurry, but shows the interior of our sweet ride from the airport.

Havana
View from our Casa's balcony

Havana
Sweet rides

Biking
somewhere, day 1 on the bikes

Comments

[Johnny]

absolutely amazing
The incredible journey by humans!?! Woozer, what a story! Thanks so much for including me in your adventure and welcome home.