For trip background see here

An overview of the road covered during our first week of cycling.

2019.01.07 – [CU] Home ==>Matanzas (0 kms | Total: 0 kms) – As part of our final trip preparation, we drove Victoria back to Kingston the previous day for the start of her 2nd semester of her 2nd year. We woke up shortly after 3am in order to reach the airport for our 7:30am flight to Varadero. We left home after loading our Subaru with our two traveling bags filled with bicycle equipment and panniers. The tandem had already been boxed and secured to the car roof. We drove to our good friends who live close to the airport and kindly offered to drop us off to the airport and return our car home. The airport check-in was fairly smooth as they were not too many folks on-site at 4:30am. After a light breakfast at Tim Horton’s, we passed through the airport’s security check. The flight to Toronto was uneventful. The flight to Varadero, although fairly short at 3.5 hours, appeared longer in part due to an annoying passenger sitting on our row near the window who needed to leave his seat every 30 minutes to relieve his sore legs. The custom and immigration process in Cuba was surprisingly fast and efficient. Our tandem box and luggage were already waiting for us when we arrived at the luggage carousel. We exited the airport and waited a few minutes for the taxi driver arranged by the owner of our casa particular. Along the 18kms taxi ride to Matanzas, we noticed a few touring cyclists on the road. We were quite pleased with our casa room and the warm welcome we received by the owner’s family. Jenny even warmed up to the casa’s Pekingese dog. Later in the afternoon with some tips from our casa owner, we managed to purchase, from a hotel around the main square, two 5 hour internet cards. Buying the internet cards from the hotel avoided us lining up forever at Cuba’s phone company counter. We quickly confirmed the internet access continued to be mainly available in public parks such as the main square – thankfully only a few blocks from our casa. We were unsuccessful at getting funds from the local ATM – a good thing we had brought with us some peso convertible from our last Cuba trip. We had our evening meal at a restaurant overlooking the main square. We welcomed an early time to bed as we were tired.

2019.01.08 – [CU] Matanzas ==> Matanzas (0 kms | Total: 0 kms) – We had a great morning breakfast at our casa. After a brief internet session at the main square, we tried again the local ATM machine. This time it appeared as our funds had made it to our accounts. Unfortunately we realized the ATM withdrawal limit were quite low for our needs. We realized the ATM visits for the next three months could become very expensive due to the various bank fees. Accessing some of our bank accounts online also met some issues when the bank’s security protocol needed to conduct a one-time security code confirmation via a text message which we could not receive. Before returning to our casa, Jenny was insistent on buying bottle water. We visited more than five different stores before finding one with water – things could be simpler if we only needed rum. While trying to find bottled water, we were reminded that Cuba was plagued by line-ups – even to walk into stores, banks, government offices, buses, etc. We spent most of the afternoon assembling the tandem on the 2nd floor patio of our casa. We had to split the tandem again to bring it down to the ground floor. We cycled a few km to confirm that all appeared good. We had our nice plentiful meal of fish at our casa. We returned late evening to the main square for a brief internet session. Late evening, we walked around town to burn off some calories from our supper.

2019.01.09 – [CU] Matanzas ==> Matanzas (0 kms | Total: 0 kms) – We had another great morning breakfast at our casa. Before stepping out of our casa, Jenny washed a few pieces of clothes while I prepared our bicycle box for storage at our casa for the next three months. Later, Noel, our casa owner, kindly phoned ahead some casas from our list in order to secure a room for the next three towns we expected to stop at. Later, we went to a nearby bank to exchange Canadian dollars in CUC (Cuban Convertible Peso). After a brief internet session at the main square, we walked around town for a few photo opportunities. For most of the afternoon, we rested on our casa’s patio.

2019.01.10 – [CU] Matanzas ==> El Fraile (42 kms | Total: 42 kms) – Before breakfast, we started to repack our panniers in our room. We enjoyed our last breakfast at our Casa while not knowing whether any of our future casas would be as nice and welcoming. Before loading the tandem, Noel handed us a list of the casas that he had reserved for us. We loaded the tandem on the sidewalks with a few onlookers. We took a farewell photos with the casa owners and dog (Sophie). We cycled to a nearby park with internet access for some banking transactions. It was fairly easy to leave town and start cycling on Via Blanca. The 42 kms ride was surprisingly punctuated with some long climbs – thankfully with manageable grade. We realized that our cycling speed was slow when we got overtaken by a horse with its cart. We found our seaside accommodation easily within the small village. We noticed that our casa was not a real casa arrangement but rather a restaurant renting rooms. Later in the afternoon, a cycling couple from Netherlands showed up in the room next to ours. We chatted a bit with them before walking out to stroll the surrounding dirt streets. We ate at our casa’s restaurant before retiring for the night at 7:30pm. Our first day was reasonably difficult with a blowing wind and some long climbs – thankfully the temperature was comfortable at 23C. Traffic, as expected was light and courteous. Our navigation application (Maps.Me) failed to provide us with any road elevation profile on the Via Blanca as it did not support cycling on this 4-way highway. Today’s classic photo was one of Jenny standing near a telephone pole beside the Via Blanca in order to get better internet reception while in the hamlet of El Fraile.

2019.01.11 – [CU] El Fraile ==> Cojímar (49 kms | Total: 91 kms) – After packing our panniers, we had breakfast with our cycling neighbors. We exchanged traveling tips on Cuba throughout the breakfast. The fixed price breakfast was somewhat disappointing compared to those from our casa in Matanzas. The road was much flatter and the wind much lower than yesterday. We avoided a long climb by cycling through the town of Guabano. We questioned ourselves whether the zigzagging on poor condition streets was worth the detour. Towards the end of our cycling route, we ventured again on a “short-cut” after confirming with locals that the small pedestrian bridge showing up on Maps.Me was actually still there and safe to cross with our tandem. We arrived at our seafront casa by early afternoon. Our room was quite large and very well equipped. We had access to a very large patio. After showering and clothes washing, we opted to walk 2 kms to a bank to secure more funds before the start of the weekend. After trying ATM withdrawal, cashing CDN dollars, we now did a cash withdraw on our credit card (with hopefully a large credit available). For our evening meal, we went to a nearby restaurant’s takeout recommended by the casa owner. As the price was in Cuban peso, it costed us only $6 for both a plate of quarter chicken and a plate of pork chop with rice. We retired for the night at around 8:30 – still tired from a 50kms day out in the warm sun.

2019.01.12 – [CU] Cojímar ==> Havana (13 kms | Total: 104 kms) – As we had a short 11kms cycling day to Havana, we enjoyed our large and tasty breakfast on the patio facing the sea. We left our casa around 10am with the intent of stopping for a few photos at a nearby restaurant made famous by Ernest Hemingway but we gave up the idea after realizing we had already cycled past it. We made our way back on the Via Blanca highway but after cycling two kms on the Via, we were stopped at a control point and told we had to take the Cyclobus through the tunnel. We knew this fact but we had not seen any signs indicating the pick-up point of the CycloBus – a bus with all its seats removed that transport bicycles and motorcycles through the tunnel leading into Old Havana. Unfortunately, we had to turn around and cycle our previous two kms. After asking the locals a few times where was the Cyclobus stop, we found the platform. At the same time, we realized we had left this morning’s casa with our room key. We managed to get a young guy to allow us to call our casa and ask them to pick-up their key while we were waiting for the Cyclobus. It was interesting to experience the bus ride through the tunnel. Once in Old Havana, we only had two kms to cycle to our casa. As we arrived at our casa before noon, we left our tandem there and went strolling the streets of Old Havana. In the mid-afternoon, we visited once again a bank to exchange some money into Cuban pesos – useful for us to buy snacks and even meals sometimes.

2019.01.13 – [CU] Havana ==> Las Terrazas (75 kms | Total: 179 kms) – Our room on the ground floor was made noisy by other patrons of the casa. It seemed like we did not get much deep sleep probably because we were both thinking of today’s ~75kms long cycling ride. We arranged for an early breakfast at 7:30am in order to leave our casa by 8am. Cycling out of Havana was surprisingly easy. Our cycling route to Las Terrazas was taken from the 2002 edition of Bicycling Cuba e-book. Although a fairly old book, it remains the official guide for touring cyclists in Cuba. We cycled along a six-lanes highway for the first 20kms. Along the way, our bicycle odometer stopped working due to a depleted battery. We’ll certainly have fun trying to find a replacement battery here. Although we were pleased with our progress, we found the last 18 kms rather difficult due to some stretches of bad road condition, the many small hills and our general fatigue. We had plan to take a good break with snacks on the last town before tackling this last stretch but a cycling event in town had brought out everyone on the street and parks – so we had opted to carry on. We were drained by the time we arrived at our casa. Our evening meal of chicken and a beer was greatly appreciated.

2019.01.14 – [CU] Las Terrazas ==> Soroa (23 kms | Total: 202 kms) – We both slept for more than 10 hours. After our breakfast, we loaded the tandem and left our casa before 9am. We stopped in the unique eco-village of Las Terrazas, some 5kms further down the road. As we expected a short 22kms cycling ride today, we took time for a coffee and an internet session in the village. In the later part of our ride, we encountered our first steep hills in Cuba. We unexpectedly had to push the tandem uphill on a few kms. We met another cycling couple from Netherlands during our struggle uphill. We cycled down an equally steep hill into Soria. After checking into our casa, we walked to the nearby tourist hotel with the (low) hope of finding a battery for our bicycle odometer. No luck. We spent the afternoon visiting a waterfall and orchid garden.

2019.01.15 – [CU] Soroa ==> San Diego de los Baños (55 kms | Total: 257 kms) – As we were in a very rural area, we anticipated an early quiet night of sleep, but instead we suffered through a concert of barking dogs and loud tv till the late night. We tried our ear plugs with limited success. We’ve now started a routine of having our breakfast at 8am and evening meal at 5:30pm. Once on the road, we benefited from a few more kms of downhill before reaching the autopista (highway). Later we moved to the carretera central. the country’s main road crossing the entire island from east to west, for the remainder of our cycling day. The road was mostly flat with a few rollings hills. We arrived at our casa shortly after 12:30pm. Over the afternoon, we saw the casa’s four rooms fill up with other tourists, including an Italian cycling couple who could not speak English.