Another long but lovely sunny day of mile-eating on the Carretera Central, and fruit-juice-drinking at kiosks en route (pic) to ensure my five a day. Their menus now include guarapo (sugar cane) and pineapple juice, and it doesn’t come out of bottles. The guarapo is not lumbered with many food miles. Food feet, more like….
Author: Rob Ainsley
Cuba 10: Guiámaro to Camagüey
Today was the most enjoyable day so far in terms of pure cycling: a straight, flat, delightful wind-assisted slide through agricultural landscapes. Casa breakfasts can be substantial. My two fried eggs, ham, cheese, rolls, pot of fresh mango, oversweet fruit juice and coffee – all included for my $20 – appeared by magic as usual….
Cuba 9: Bayamo to Guiámaro
A big-mileage day today, thanks to yesterday’s rest day, flat smooth empty roads, and a generous tailwind. And copious snacks and drinks from roadside kiosks. The dawn suburbs (pic) gave way to an untrafficked country lane, aka the main trans-national highway. Two sunny, warm hours or so out, just as I was getting hungry, was…
Cuba 8: Holguín
On my bike tours, I take a day off roughly every week. I find it helps prevent build-up of niggling injuries, sore knees and so on. It also reminds me how much I dislike buses and footslogging round towns with a guidebook tick-list, so I’m keen to get back on the bike next day, enjoying…
Cuba 7: Manzanillo to Bayamo
A short day’s cycling on easy flat stuff, into a mild headwind, with the unusual sight of a separated cycle lane for the first 10km or so. (Though bear in mind that you’re more likely to find a car in a British separated cycle lane than on a Cuban road.) While I was never far…
Cuba 6: Pilón to Manzanillo
Cuba gets hot in the afternoon, so I’m starting early. My 7am departure today meant no breakfast, and no proper goodbye to my casa’s host: I had to wake him up to retrieve the bike. I felt a bit guilty, because it had been an excellent stay with an entire first floor flat to myself…
Cuba 5: Chivirico to Pilón
The best day of the trip so far. But it was nearly the worst. And last. I enjoyed a morning dip and a dawn breakfast of fruit and coffee on the casa’s terrace overlooking Chivirico beach (pic), keen to get going. The sun splashed warm orange on the destination hills and mountains, roughly the same…
Cuba 4: Santiago de Cuba to Chivirico
I was up and out at five, and I wasn’t alone. Mornings are warm and street life starts up early (pic), with plenty of peso kiosks open for takeaway breakfast snacks. They’re cheap, unimaginative and simple, but then so am I. I did the guidebook’s recommended Old Town Walk, on my bike, and left Santiago…
Cuba 3: Guantánamo to Santiago de Cuba
The old road out from the city west was all quiet rural stuff: Leicestershire with palm trees. I turned on to the autopista (‘motorway’): this being Cuba, bikes are allowed. In fact, it was so quiet, with just the occasional 1950s gas-guzzler lumbering by (pic)… …or indeed the odd man on a donkey (pic), that…
Cuba 2: Imías to Guantánamo
Having slipped J— (pic) a few pesos for BIKE REPAIRS and not accomm or breakfast, oh no, I headed west. It was easy riding, flat, windless… and shopless and cafeless. Still, there was some good oceanside riding, with the usual levels of traffic on Cuban main roads (pic). With 25km to go – and pleased…