Author: Rob Ainsley

How many Cuban bureaucrats does it take to change a light bulb? Makes no difference, we don’t have a light bulb… Anyway, I spent the morning at the visa office, extending my stay, and the officials were all helpful enough. First, I had to get special stamps to pay with, involving a trip to Bandec…

A day off. Or rather, a short bike trip to the seaside and back for lunch, and an afternoon lounging round Trinidad, while I waited for the visa office to reopen tomorrow morning. I didn’t care much for Playa Ancón, a tourist beach (pic) by a hotel. Guards wanted $1 for me to use the…

I had the casa’s grand courtyard all to myself for my splendid breakfast (pic). With Vitamin C requirements for the coming week satisfied, I set off through the waking dawn streets, across that Yorkshire Bridge, to join the main road to Trinidad. It was lovely cycling (pic). After the previous few days of rather perfunctory…

I woke up to a minor disaster. At some point in the night – presumably during my dream about a house collapsing – my laptop had slid off the bedside table on to the casa’s hard stone floor. The screen was now as cracked as a tour-minibus windscreen, and worked as a touch screen about…

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….

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….

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…

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…

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 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…