A bike ride in Cuba? What
would that be like? Well, how about having the chance to ride safely along a motorway.
The opportunity to pick up hitchhikers (seriously!). To ride with hummingbirds at your elbow and
chat with a cigar-smoking cowboy on a horse as you progress side by side.
All that was a few years ago.
December 1999, the very end of the last century. I can’t vouch for the same
experiences today – though I doubt things have changed very much. But it will
soon, now the atmosphere between Cuba and the US is thawing.
I flew with my bike into
Havana with Cubana Airlines for some local colour en route and stayed a few
days in Havana, my Roberts Clubman safely parked and locked to my bed. Then off
along the Malecon, the beautiful road curving round the bay, lined with tall
white buildings, once casinos and classy hotels. Before long, things go wrong
and I am on the ramp down to the motorway. There’s a soldier at the bottom,
bound to stop me. But no, he’d like a lift on the rear carrier – so would the
other people waiting there.
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| People waiting for a lift - even the back of my bike will do |
Off down the motorway, not a
car to be seen. The local bike club joins me and we chat as we cruise along.
They show me my exit – unsignposted but it is the right one. The lack of
signposting everywhere means regular map reading, and the frequent need to ask
the way. I am heading west, towards Viñales. The road is pretty good, the views
great. People wave, whistle and call out as I pass.
Diary entry from Bahia Honda:
Now I am sitting in a rocking chair in
front of my Casa Particular (b&b). The bike is in the back yard with the
cooking pot. In the street in front of me the neighbours are noisily playing
dominoes. There are pigs, chickens and dogs all around. The sounds from neighbouring
houses drift into the evening air – there can’t be many secrets here. The
family chat away and I keep smiling and nodding though I haven’t much of a clue
what they are saying. I guess this is the real Cuba.
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| Señor and Señora, my first Casa Particular hosts |
The smooth road from Bahia
Honda to La Mulata was one of the loveliest I had seen at the time and still
is. In the distance, hazy blue mountains as the road wanders between palms and
trees whose huge limbs form a canopy over the road. Among them are small homes
and farms growing tobacco, coffee, sugar, melons, grapefruit, bananas and rice
with oxen dragging ploughs through watery meadows.
I pass a coffee plantation
and only when I stop, hear the laughter and chatting of the pickers at work. At
a house round the corner beans are being roasted, the smell…ahh, the smell!
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| En route from Bahia Honda |
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| One of the loveliest roads I have cycled along |
At every junction there’s a
crowd waiting for a lift and every time I stop to ask the way, I have to turn
down the opportunity of picking up a passenger. Not all roads are smooth, I
cover extra kilometres dodging round potholes but as the traffic is scarce and
generally noisy, it’s not a problem to be on the wrong side.
Heading back towards Havana,
a guy on a chinese Flying Pigeon bike (like the Model T Ford, they are all
black) ducks like a racer into the tuck position and sits on my wheel for miles
as we head into wind. Now we’re passing a guy with a chicken hanging by its
feet from his handlebars quietly clucking away.
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| Strange rock art along the road near Viñales |
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| Rocky landscape and homes near Viñales |
Tropical nights with
downpours, exotic trees and plants, noisy birds and hungry mosquitoes, “son”
music drifting in the warm, humid air, the sound of chattering voices in the
distance. Hotel staff fast asleep in easy chair in the reception area – ah!
Cuba!
Riding into Havana, I am hot,
gritty, sticky, stinky. A motorcycle cop on a Moto Guzzi stops me. Speeding?
No, he’d like my sweaty mitts. In Havana I swopped some water bottles with the
bike taxi guy in exchange for a chance to drive his bike with him as passenger.
Cuba, a place to go cycling?
Well it was great when I went. Havana is amazing. The countryside stunning. The
people totally friendly and always after “souvenirs”. The food (then) pretty
awful – lots of rice. Would I go again? Yes, certainly. However, on the way
home I wrote: “the next bike ride should be in the first world, not the second
or third. Austria has to be the number one cycling country”
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| Taxi guy with my water bottle - I gave him a ride in his taxi |
Log
505km
Route
Havana, Quiebra Hacia, Bahia
Honda, La Mulata, La Palma, Viñales, Pons, Cabezas, Piñar del Rio, Candelaria,
Soroa, Las Terrazas, Meriél, Havana
Coffee
Everywhere, bold, black
caffeine in tiny cups
You said it!
Condemn me. It is of no
importance. History will absolve me – Fidel Castro’s self defence speech before
the court in Santiago de Cuba, October 1953
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| Friendly people everywhere |
