An overview of the road covered during this segment of our cycling.

2019.01.26 – [CU] Viñales ==> Viñales (0 kms | Total: 686 kms) – At breakfast, the sky appeared to clear up a bit but more rain was in the forecast for the afternoon. We had been looking forward to some hiking and even horse back riding to discover the wonders of the Vinales region – the third most visited area of Cuba after Havana and Varadero. Instead, we limited our exploration to a walk on the main street filled with numerous bars, restaurants and casa particulares. At noon, we decided to cycle to the Prehistoric Mural some 4 kms away. We had cycled by the entrance yesterday but with the rain we did not even consider stopping. Our visit to the Mural was limited to taking some photos from far away. According to our travel guide book, the work of art took 18 people and 4 years to complete. Back at our casa, I did some basic maintenance on the tandem. By mid-afternoon, the rain started to fall with increase intensity. We savored at our casa some well prepared lobster for our evening meal. Our latest quest for supplies in Cuba consisted of dental floss. We were anxious to see whether we could get some in Havana. We would see soon enough.

2019.01.27 – [CU] Viñales ==> Palma Rubia (52 kms | Total: 737 kms) – We were somewhat relieved that the rain had stopped as we stepped out of our casa’s room for breakfast. The sky remained quite cloudy. We managed to finish our breakfast, load the tandem and take a few photos of our friendly casa owners before any rain drops. As we continued to cycle, the sky was increasingly cleared. Shortly after arriving at our casa in Palma Rubia, some 50 kms from Vinales, we were surprised to see the rain fall. We were even more surprised to discover that Palma Rubia was not even a hamlet, it only consisted of a few casas particulares that were sustained by tourists driving through to catch the ferry to Cayo Levisa and its beach. During our evening meal, we witnessed a heavy rain downpour with accompanying strong winds. This unusual weather appeared to be the culmination of the cold front that all the locals were talking about for the past week or so. The rain and wind continued throughout the evening.

2019.01.28 – [CU] Palma Rubia ==> Bahía Honda (41 kms | Total: 778 kms) – Even with window shutters closed, the wind had managed to infiltrate our room to the point that our wet clothes hanging up in the room had dried up during the night. By morning, although the rain had stopped, the wind was still blowing heavily. We had a few flashbacks to some strong windy days we experienced last year in New Zealand and Tasmania. Our breakfast was served inside the casa due to the wind condition. As we noticed, the favorable tailwind, we opted to load the tandem and start cycling the 40 kms to Bahia Honda. As we retraced yesterday’s 4 kms to the main road, we noticed the wind had either calmed down or that we were sheltered by the vegetation along the road. At the entrance of our destination town, a young cyclist identified himself as the son of the casa owners where we had a reservation. He escorted us to his casa most likely to ensure we were not intercepted by other folks promoting their own casa. While we were waiting for our room to be finished cleaning, we learned that a tornado had touched down in Havana yesterday evening. Three people had been killed and several dozens of others had been injured by the unusual twister produced by the cold front. After our daily routine, we walked to the town center for some snacks. We finally found our first peso pizza offering – two individual pizzas for $1 CDN. We bought some water and beer before returning to our casa. We had another great lobster evening meal at our casa.

2019.01.29 – [CU] Bahía Honda ==> Mariel (53 kms | Total: 832 kms) – After a good and plentiful breakfast, we bid farewell to our hosts and started cycling towards Mariel. The road was particularly pleasant with its undulating hills and many curves. As we arrived in Mariel after cycling a bit more than 50kms, we were greeted on the side of the road by our new hosts. After our daily post-cycling routine, we walked to the town center for an internet session. Being offline most of the time still challenged us. Jenny has put her offline situation to good use by cleaning up her huge mailbox and contact lists. We’ve been catching ourselves playing more games on our phone than we ever expected. The hosts had invited some friends over as it was the lady’s birthday. While Jenny ordered fish for her evening meal, I enjoyed some great BBQ chicken prepared for the birthday event. Although to date our casa evening meal offering was limited to fish, chicken or pork, we’ve yet to be bored of the food as every casa hosts seemed to prepare their food differently.

2019.01.30 – [CU] Mariel ==> Havana Centro (50 kms | Total: 882 kms) – Shortly after leaving Mariel, the carretera norte (Northern Road) became a four line highway. The road was fairly flat with long strait stretches. We were a bit apprehensive about the traffic as we cycled into the streets of the western part of Havana. We had no difficulty finding our way to a large commercial center where we’d hoped to buy some snacks and other supplies (e.g. dental floss). After leaving our tandem with a parking attendant, we walked into the grocery store and were shocked to see how many refrigerated sections and shelves were empty. Thankfully there were plenty of ketchup and shampoo – if you were looking for those things. We had prepared to spend a little fortune in snacks but we left the large grocery store with a purchase of $4 CUC which accounted for some shampoo, cookies and clothes washing soap. We continued our urban cycling for another 10kms before arriving to our reserved casa. We learned that we would be relocated to the casa next door. We enjoyed our new casa even more as it provided us with internet access. Later in the afternoon, we stopped at a bank for more funds. We also walked to a nearby pier to confirm the availability of a ferry service which we were planning to take when leaving Havana as an alternate option to the cyclobus.

2019.01.31 – [CU] Havana Centro ==> Havana Centro (0 kms | Total: 882 kms) – During our leisure morning breakfast, we chatted with a couple from Sweden who had been traveling for the past four months in Central America. They were now wrapping up their adventure later in the day and flying back to their home country. They had celebrated Christmas in Costa Rica with their twin young adults who had flown in for the event. As they were impressed by our cycling trip, we were also very impressed by their volunteering work they had done in Guatemala that involved building a house for a family. Before leaving our casa for a walking exploration, we had a rather confusing internet session at our casa. We discovered that one of our 5 hours internet card had been depleted rather mysteriously over night. Our internet saga continued with Jenny being unable to clearly logout of her internet account. In our simplistic mind, we opted to turn off the casa’s router. As much as we had previously mentioned the superior features of an iPhone, we had come to realize that Android phones were best supported/adapted to Cuba’s internet infrastructure. Hence, my old Huawei Honor 5X was much more trouble free at accessing the internet than Jenny’s iPhone 7S. Needless to say that Cuba is a different place! We walked along the Prado’s large boulevard up to the seafront’s promenade. We made our way to an Etecsa booth in order to buy more internet cards and seek help with our current internet cards which did not appear to let us access the internet anymore. The attendant managed to correct my situation but was not able to do the same with Jenny’s iPhone. Along our walk, we stopped at a large open-air ice cream parlor where we opted to pay in CUC to avoid the 30-40 minutes waiting for those wanted to pay in local peso (CUP). Later in a nearby park, while I was enjoying some peso hot dogs, Jenny befriended with some Chinese students in an attempt to resolve her blocked internet access. We realized that Jenny’s connection was still alive back at our casa, she regained access to the internet, unfortunately only once her internet card was depleted. Back at the casa, we agreed to be extra careful with our use of casa provided internet access. We relaxed at our casa before dropping by a pizzeria for our evening meal.

2019.02.01 – [CU] Havana Centro ==> El Fraile (60 kms | Total: 942 kms) – After our breakfast, we loaded the tandem and cycled to a small dock with two ferries crossing the bay at different locations. Although the dock was not very far from our casa, the maze of one-way streets made the commute a bit more challenging. We waited 15 minutes for the small ferry to take us across the bay. Once on the other side we rejoined the Via Blanca road that brought us to our destination town of El Fraile some 60 kms further. The last third of our route was rather demanding as we faced a strong head wind along the open seafront. As we arrived in El Fraile, a young Canadian couple caught up to us on bicycles. As they spoke highly of their casa particular which they had booked for 11 days, they suggested we dropped by their casa. We innocently followed them there. We were quite upset when we found out that the casa only had one room and hence had no availability. We kept on wondering what they thought we were looking for at the end of a cycling day. We discovered that the other casa particulares in the hamlet were also fully booked – even the one we had stayed on our way to the western cycling loop. Jenny started to be panic a bit but I kept on reassuring her that there were more accommodation options nearby. Thankfully, Maps.Me guided us to another casa particular only 1 km further. We were quite relieved when the owner confirmed that he had plenty of availabilities. After a good seafood meal at our casa, we opted to walk 1 km on the highway to the nearest wifi zone.

2019.02.02 – [CU] El Fraile ==> Matanzas (41 kms | Total: 982 kms) – As we were eager to reach Matanzas some 40 kms away, we appreciated having our breakfast a bit early. Back on the road, we cycled through Playa Jibacoa from which we heard last night the far away sound of music from a discotheque playing until 4am. This beach area appeared to be very popular had it hosted a number of cabin equipped campgrounds in addition to a couple of expensive resort hotels. Although the route presented quite a few more long hills than yesterday but we did not mind as we did not have to struggle with the wind. We briefly stopped at a busy lookout for taking a few photos of Cuba’s highest bridge across the Bacunayagua river and its picturesque valley. For the last 10 kms, we ventured on a very pleasant small secondary road that brought us into Matanzas. Our casa hosts greeted us warmly once again. Noel, the casa owner, had kindly helped us make casa reservations for most of our western cycling loop. In the afternoon, we enjoyed two bowls of ice cream each. Back at our casa, we briefly chatted with a French couple. The lady had broken her arm after a fall during a visit of the small cascada in Soroa. Interestingly, they were very impressed by how promptly they had been driven to the closest hospital and her arm put into a cast – all within less than two hours.

2019.02.03 – [CU] Matanzas ==> Cárdenas (52 kms | Total: 1034 kms) – At breakfast, we had some more enjoyable travel exchanges with the French couple. After a few more farewell photos, we left Noel and Marilys’ casa for Cardenas some 50 kms away. We cycled fairly fast along the four-lane highway leading into Varadero. We opted to skip cycling the long Varadero peninsula as it would add another 20+ kms to our daily itinerary. We arrived in Cardenas shortly after 12:00pm. We stopped at the casa that Noel had reserved for us but we could not locate the owners. We finally secured another nice casa for two nights. Later in the afternoon, we had our first cocktails of the trips with some pizza and sandwich. Many stores and restaurants were closed today as being Sunday. Although our casa owner had initially indicated that she did not offer any evening meals, she later offered to prepare us a meal of shrimps which we gladly accepted after confirming the limited meal options in town.