A tobacco factory in Ciego de Avila and onto Camaguey

Phil's version: Day 100/24 May

 

Allie testing a proper Cuban cigar

The rainy season in eastern Cuba has definitely set in. Between brief stops in Sancti Spiritus and Ciego de Avila, both slightly tired colonial-style towns, we drive through torrential rain so heavy at times I have to stop altogether. Collective chicken farms and ranches dot the flat lowlands. In Ciego de Avila there is a cigar factory in the main street filled with large Cuban ladies fashioning fat cigars if not on their thighs then in ancient wooden moulds. One offers Allie a freshly-made and sweet-smelling cigar through the window in exchange for a Peso.

Normal traffic on the country roads

I am becoming concerned at a sound emanating from the front nearside wheel of our Hyundai hire car which sounds to me like an incipient bearing failure. 

The chances of getting it fixed or arranging a replacement vehicle seem remote, so I check every hundred km or so to try and avoid some catastrophic result. 

After a series of Spanglish conversations with Cubacar Havana and their local rep in Camaguey a bell-boy at the hotel takes me to change the car. When we get there I am told that tomorrow morning I must take the existing car elsewhere for a check. We shall see, but at least they seem to be trying. I ‘buy’ the bell-boy as my Mr Fixit for the negotiations.

view over Camaguey

Camaguey is a big city with an industrial aura. What few attractive buildings it seems to possess are all in need of repair and a lick of paint. Hustlers on bicycles leer at Allie through the car windows and challenge us both on every street corner with offers of (more) cigars or a bicy-taxi ride.

There is only one restaurant with any character and it is full of both locals and visitors – usually a good sign. I need to recover from a run in the rain from the ETECSA Internet shop to what I thought was our hotel but, disoriented by several changes of location in our search, I run three blocks the wrong way before realising my mistake. A Mojito seems in order to preceed a very passable pizza.

Allie's version: DAY 100: Thursday, 24^th of May

Interesting encounters along the road from Trinidad to Camaguey

Disappointment in the early morning: the swimming pool is closed for cleaning. I look for an alternative and hike up the hill to enjoy sunrise over the Bay of Ancon with its huge tourist hotels and the old town of Trinidad. Phil gets a nice shot of an old aircraft at the deserted aeropuerto and then we head out toward the city of Sancti Spiritus. The road isn’t bad and except for the odd horse carts and bus-trucks there is hardly any traffic on the road. Sancti Spiritus offers a few nice old houses, an old Spanish bridge from 1815 and some pedestrian streets under repair.

The Spanish bridge in Sancti Spiritus

We carry on towards Camaguey with a little coffee stop in Ciego de Avila. ‘La Fontana’ has been recommended in the Lonely Planet as THE coffee bar to stop at and indeed we do stop there in the hope to fill up on caffeine. The espresso actually doesn’t taste much better then anywhere else but the price of it surprises us.

visiting the tabacco factory

So we ask why suddenly coffee should cost four times as much as anywhere else (here 8 dollars there only 2). After some discussion between the waitresses we are told to pay only 1 dollar. That sounds cheap we think. But the real surprise comes when we are told to wait for our change which turns out to be 10 Dollars!! Do you get the story? 

We don’t – really. Fabienne and Jean had told us that the local currency is 22 pesos to 1 cuc (convertible pesos), but so far we have never been given in return anything other the the money we are given by the banks.

So we wonder whether there indeed exists a local currency and if, how it works and why there isn’t a large black market or some ‘foreign shops’ like there have been in the former Soviet Union or China. We watch people paying for things and the money seems to be the same. But the prices surely must be different because goods are just about the same price as in the UK. But why do we hardly ever get the other currency? We can’t solve the mystery but we shall surely watch very close from now on what’s happening…

she seems a happy worker!

Ciego de Avila has not much else to offer but we discover a tobacco fabric where I can buy a proper hand-rolled cigarillo off the lady who did the job and we find a ‘paneria’ that sells us cinnamon rolls (or thereabouts) for the local pesos that we have proudly acquired at the coffee shop. 

The countryside here along the ‘Carrtera national’ is pretty boring: it’s very flat with a few rain trees and bushes but not much else. We stop at the tacky looking Hotel Florida to check our tires. Phil believes that the wheel bearings are wrong and is worried about the safety of our car.

empty shops

At 14.30 we drive into the city of Camaguey in the pouring rain. The weather today is indeed pretty awful, rainy and quite cold. But never mind we check in at the ‘Gran Hotel’ which might have been ‘grand’ when it was built in 1929 but looks like its falling apart in the next minutes. 

a few shoes for sale...

Still, it’s supposed to be the best hotel in town. Our room overlooks the pedestrian street with its ‘supermarkets’ and cafeterias. To my utter surprise I even discover a small swimming pool. After a refreshing dip we wander around the streets in order to find an internet café. 

It seems that all the private ‘Cybercafes’ that are mentioned in our book have been abolished and replaced by ETECA. Here you queue for hours with grumpy looking staff and finally buy your 6 Dollars card that will buy you one hour on the net (I watch the lady giving change and she indeed opens up a different drawer to take out my change!).

Whilst Phil does his emails I wander around the shops. The window displays are amazing: here you can buy motorbike helmets alongside with toothpaste, spirits like local rum, cutlery, hair curlers and electric bulbs!

The choice of goods will take you hours to decide what you really want! What we really wanted is some good wine and only by the grace of God we had managed to find some Chilean red wine. The local stuff clearly tastes more like vinegar then anything else.

Empty bar at the Bodega con Cayetano

Having secured a decent evening in our room we go out for dinner at the only decent pub in town called ‘Bodega con Cayetano’. It sees to be THE place where everybody foreign and local meets. Decent background music and a nice choice of dishes and drinks plus some outdoors seating make this restaurant a nice retreat for the evening. Back in our rooms we try the local TV just to see what’s on in Cuban television. Surprisingly enough half of the channels are American, but you could also listen to Deutsche Welle and BBC.

finally in our basic room at the Gran hotel - not so gran!