Holguín

After yesterday’s ride I am utterly depleted. Luckily for my I didn’t have much to do and all the things to see are within a few blocks.

First up was the Loma de la Cruz which I didn’t really know what it was but was told I should see. I was greeted with a 495 step hill climb to a lookout over the city. The views were amazing overlooking the city but my legs were not happy at all with my decision.

Downtown Holguín has its own charm. The people have a rural farm pride about them. The downtown area has a nice pedestrian walk that parallels 4 very distinct central parks, which offer a great place to relax and people watch.

Holguín was also the first time I opted for the “fancy” restaurant experience rather that the peso street stalls where you can get a basic pizza for about $0.40. I ate at two very different places. The first was dolled up as an Italian Trattoria and the food was good and filling, it set me back $15. The second place I went to, arguably one of the better restaurants in town, I had a Caribbean chicken dish that was more food than one person can eat and the set me back about $13.

I think now is a good time to talk about the food situation in Cuba. Previous to my trip I kept reading how scarce food was and in a lot of ways that’s true. The supermarkets frequently have bare shelfs with few items, there is no choice and no selection of note. Staple food are in abundance. It would be interesting to experience the cuisine prior to communism as I think it was drastically different. Now the Cuban diet mostly consists of a lot of low quality foods with very little in the way of spice or flavor, opting for lots of rice and banana chips to pair any dish. The bread was the biggest quandary for me, it’s hard, boring and just terrible! I think yeast is controlled or something because nobody makes their own bread and everybody buys there it from the government panaderias.

There are two markets for selling produce which eliminates a lot of waste. The first is selling to the government (This includes the least desirable cuts of meat and produce) and then it’s sold to the consumer (peso stalls, the poor etc.). The second is direct to consumer where the farmer sells the best cuts and produce  to the rich as well as the “fancy restaurants”.

I could talk about the food all day but I won’t bore you with the details (If you want to know more shoot me a message).

Even though the restaurants are cheap I don’t think I’ll be frequenting any more of them, opting instead for the peso stalls and the small restaurants where the vast majority of Cubans eat their meals and stretch my limited finances for the rest of my trip. That basically means outside of my casas that run $20-25 a night I have roughly 15 dollars to spend each day on incidentals: food, water, snacks, tours, museums, etc.

Tomorrow I’m back on the bike heading southwest to the city of Bayamo. Luckily I understand it’ll only be about a 45 mile ride. But the icing on the cake is that it is supposed to be flat the whole way to Bayamo.

Update 2/14/17

My plans have changed once again. I did not sleep very well and I woke up sick and weak both physically and mentally. At breakfast when I was unable to eat anything I decided that it probably would be best to give my body another day of rest. Not sure if it was from the sick woman who was in front of me at the line for Etecsa or if I got mild food poisoning at one of those fancy restaurants. Either way I’m down for the count, but slowly on the mend. Hopefully that trend continues and tomorrow I am back on the bike to Bayamo.

Luckily it proved to be a quick illness and I was able to beat it back after a day in bed. But in my weakened state I decided to change my plans and not go to Bayamo or Manzanillo but instead head north to Playa la Herradura and use the extra time to rest and recover on the beach of course.