Satellite
  • Day 13

    Cycling the city

    December 27, 2018 in Cuba ⋅ ☀️ 25 °C

    After the first full night’s sleep for everyone - with nobody feeling unwell, we had a simple breakfast at the hotel and joined the bicycle tour.

    For the next 5 hours we cycled all our way across four of Cuba’s municipalities- the Vedado built around the 1920 with its beautiful houses falling into ruin... the political centre - a concrete plaza surrounded by grey concrete buildings emblazoned with the fathers of socialist Cuba on them.. the old entrance to Chinatown - no longer home to any Chinese who left after all the businesses were nationalised.. the forest - so beautiful and green... the Malacon - all the way along the beachless seafront and behind the magnificent Hotel National, and finally back through old Havana.

    It was exhilarating and exhausting. Hours of riding through traffic and up hills, trying our best to avoid potholes (which are everywhere).

    We stopped at 10 historic sites and at each stop we heard a little more about the history of this country and about Cuban life today from our guide Marcel.

    He told us about the compulsory 2 years of military service (only one if you can prove you go to University). The ration book that allows each person 12 eggs, a portion of rice, flour and chicken each month. And the average monthly salary? $25.

    ‘Can you be a vegetarian?’ Asked Charley. Marcel laughed at the question. ‘No you can’t,’ he answered. ‘And sometimes the vegetables get lost are you can’t get any from the shops for weeks.’

    Marcel has an engineering degree majoring in telecommunications and electronics but there are no jobs in this field and tourism is the only industry that pays well - he explained that the lawyers and other professionals are the lowest paid on a set government salary, whilst the taxi drivers and tour guides do well.

    It’s a country unlike any other - incredibly expensive for tourists who pay US prices for a plate of rice, beans and fish or chicken. Fancy western stores sit next door to the simplest, almost empty, drab stores for locals. The newest hotel - houses in a restored department store charges $1000 per room per night and is changing the face of the centre. And there’s a strong anti American sentiment from the locals.

    By the time we returned the bikes to the garage, we were absolutely exhausted, slightly sunburnt and very hungry.
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