We have
arrived in Matanzas (100km from la Habanna) after some lovely days on the coast and a couple of hard days riding, yesterday 92km with a head wind all day. Have just been entertained by a wind band playing in the park for the anniversary of Jose Marti, national hero, poet and freedom fighter born in 1853. Were woken up this morning at 7 am by music playing nearby. From balcony of our casa we watch more than a thousand school children singing and processing through the town in celebration. Fortunately shops and museums were still open and we visited the Museo Farmaceutico 
founded by French Ernest Triolett and his Cuban partner. The 2 chemists won a gold medal in the 1900 Paris Exhibition and is now a wonderfully preserved example on how medicines were preserved and 
prepared from basic ingredients on the premises. there were 1000's of raw material (from arsenic to cinnamon to ants for formic acid...) all in labelled bottles or porcelain jars.
The coast and its hardships and delights seems far behind. Hardships because of weather and lack of food. Out of Trinidad we had to dodge deluges of rain, took shelter in a restaurant where we met a bus load of cyclists (mainly Swiss) and got so hungry we had to tu
ck into our reserve of cashew nuts and porrideg oats (dry). The delights were snorkelling in the beautiful transparent turquoise sea. We swam through shoals of rainbow coloured fish, all darting in and out of coral. It was too beautiful for words. The next day we went on a guided tour in the swamps of Zapata where our knowledgeable guide Mario showed us many birds including the iridescent blue zunzuncito, the smallest humming bird in the world at 5 and a half cm long! Mario was so excited to see it as he is very rare, small, shy and very hard to see!
arrived in Matanzas (100km from la Habanna) after some lovely days on the coast and a couple of hard days riding, yesterday 92km with a head wind all day. Have just been entertained by a wind band playing in the park for the anniversary of Jose Marti, national hero, poet and freedom fighter born in 1853. Were woken up this morning at 7 am by music playing nearby. From balcony of our casa we watch more than a thousand school children singing and processing through the town in celebration. Fortunately shops and museums were still open and we visited the Museo Farmaceutico 
founded by French Ernest Triolett and his Cuban partner. The 2 chemists won a gold medal in the 1900 Paris Exhibition and is now a wonderfully preserved example on how medicines were preserved and 
prepared from basic ingredients on the premises. there were 1000's of raw material (from arsenic to cinnamon to ants for formic acid...) all in labelled bottles or porcelain jars.The coast and its hardships and delights seems far behind. Hardships because of weather and lack of food. Out of Trinidad we had to dodge deluges of rain, took shelter in a restaurant where we met a bus load of cyclists (mainly Swiss) and got so hungry we had to tu
ck into our reserve of cashew nuts and porrideg oats (dry). The delights were snorkelling in the beautiful transparent turquoise sea. We swam through shoals of rainbow coloured fish, all darting in and out of coral. It was too beautiful for words. The next day we went on a guided tour in the swamps of Zapata where our knowledgeable guide Mario showed us many birds including the iridescent blue zunzuncito, the smallest humming bird in the world at 5 and a half cm long! Mario was so excited to see it as he is very rare, small, shy and very hard to see!
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