Phew! We have survived cycling in the dark from the airport to our first Casa, a puncture, quasi starvation because we refused to go to expensive restaurants, panic attacks because we couldn't find loos, cockroaches, bedrooms without windows roads full of potholes and the fumes from 60 year old american cars...
But people are so friendly and helpful and cheerful despite very low standard of living ($25 a month, a can of beer cost a day's wages). Architecture is fascinating, magnificent old Spanish colonial houses but crumbling and bomb sites everywhere. High rise Russian 60s and 70s buildings now falling into pieces. Amazing mixture.
It has taken until today to work out how we will survive. Restaurants for tourists are much too expensive so we find our food in markets, which is interesting and at least 10 times cheaper than in restaurants. But there is nowhere to sit and no toilets!
Internet very rare and expensive ($10 an hour = meal for 2)
Going tonight to Santiago by bus. It will be interesting to see how we negotiate how to put the tandem on the bus!We have lots of 1 pesos in our pocket! Cycling on Avenue 23 today we met a "miracle man" this morning, Ignacio, president of the Federation of Cyclists in Cuba, who cycled with us to the bus station helped us work out some of the essential details on how to book a ticket and most importantly how to get the tandem on bus. Will let you know how we get on...
But people are so friendly and helpful and cheerful despite very low standard of living ($25 a month, a can of beer cost a day's wages). Architecture is fascinating, magnificent old Spanish colonial houses but crumbling and bomb sites everywhere. High rise Russian 60s and 70s buildings now falling into pieces. Amazing mixture.
It has taken until today to work out how we will survive. Restaurants for tourists are much too expensive so we find our food in markets, which is interesting and at least 10 times cheaper than in restaurants. But there is nowhere to sit and no toilets!Internet very rare and expensive ($10 an hour = meal for 2)
Going tonight to Santiago by bus. It will be interesting to see how we negotiate how to put the tandem on the bus!We have lots of 1 pesos in our pocket! Cycling on Avenue 23 today we met a "miracle man" this morning, Ignacio, president of the Federation of Cyclists in Cuba, who cycled with us to the bus station helped us work out some of the essential details on how to book a ticket and most importantly how to get the tandem on bus. Will let you know how we get on...
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