Baracoa, Guardalavaca and Havana pt 2

Our collectivo ride from Santiago de Cuba to Baracoa was uncomfortable but fairly uneventful, apart from meeting a Russian guy who was doing the journey as a day trip and was returning in the afternoon (the trip took 5 hours one way). We arrived at the Casa that had been arranged for us, and went to look around. Baracoa had for a long time been isolated from the rest of Cuba, only being reachable by sea until a road was built to it in 1964. The town was small and within an hour we had pretty much done a lap of it. There was a peninsula with a fort and a wrecked ship, and a kind of high street with lots of tourist restaurants.

Photo stop before Baracoa

Slightly weathered boat

Some kind of angry sea woman at the end

While Jonno had been developing his caveman look for a few weeks, I had been prompting him to maybe look for somewhere to get his hair and beard cut. As we walked down the high street, out jumped a barber from his shop, clearly noticing the same thing. He started sweet talking Jonno to persuade him to come and use his business, and of course I was already sold on it. Realising there was no escape, Jonno gave in and negotiated the price to $5 for a haircut and beard trim. From where I was sitting, it all looked okay, but from Jonno's reports it was the roughest experience he had ever had, with an extremely blunt razor and being yanked about. On closer inspection it was definitely not a great haircut, it was extremely uneven and Jonno had to prompt him to try and even it out a bit. Also Jonno noticed the sign for the local prices, 5 local pesos for a haircut, a 25th of the price we paid. He clearly knew that he could make a lot more from an unsuspecting tourist.
After doing another lap of the town and stopping a while at the seafront, we concluded it probably was a town you could do as a day trip. Oh well.

Main street of Baracoa- must have walked up and down it 20 times

Battle of the pups- street pup VS roof pup

'Cuba is ours'

For dinner we had been given a leaflet for a vegetarian restaurant, which sounded like a nice change from my mostly chicken and rice based dishes. It wasn't easy to find and was at the opposite end of town, but eventually we found the tiny sign in an alleyway that lead to the 'restaurant'. We were greeted by an extremely over enthusiastic man, who squealed and cackled at us in a serial killer kind of way, and showed to the tables, one in the kitchen and some large logs in the garden. The food was a selection of dishes laid out in the kitchen, and although it was difficult at first to work out what it actually was, it was actually pretty good and had more flavour than most other meals we had in Cuba.
As we were eating, the heavens had opened again and it didn't look like it was stopping anytime soon. We had no choice but to make a run for it, and even with our raincoats we were still getting drenched.
Thankfully a guy in a bicycle taxi took pity on us and took us the last half of the journey and was really reluctant to take any money from us.
We arrived back in the casa to the husband of the house having an extremely intense game of dominos with his friends. This was no game for kids, and involved slamming the domino down as hard as possible and insulting the other players.

EMBED THE DOMINO IN THE TABLE 

We had one more day in Baracoa, and felt we had done enough laps of the town. The area was surrounded by mountains and forests, so we decided to try one of the walking trails, which first took us through some neighbouring villages. The further we went out of town the more basic it became, with dirt roads, huts and chickens wandering around. At the end of the last village, before the forest, we were stopped by a guy with a machete who started asking us questions about where we were going. When we told him, he said the paths were not in a good condition because of the rain, and although we couldn't work out if this was the truth or not, it then started to rain so we agreed to sit with him under a nearby tree. He was then joined by some friends who brought rum (there doesn't seem to be an unacceptable drinking time here, people start with beer at 8am).

Town...

...To countryside

As far as we got into our walk

Taking the essentials across the river. Laundry,pup...

When the rain calmed down we decided against going any further in case the weather turned again, so started to head back towards town, although now the guy decided he was going to take us on a tour of the village first. He took us firstly to a house where a man was making chocolate and the local sweets made from dried fruits, then to his own house to meet his aunt and gave us coffee, then to another woman's house who sold some kind of herbal drink. As we were sitting on the woman's porch watching baby chicks using their mother as a slide, and wondering how much money this guy was going to ask us for, a policeman walked past and started questioning the guy and woman about why they had foreigners in their house. We were not sure what was and wasn't allowed so we decided to play ignorant and keep quiet, and the guy said something that seemed to be acceptable, as the policeman then left. Using this as a good excuse to leave, the guy told us he would walk us to the outskirts of the village, and didn't actually ask us for any money, which left us feeling more shocked as this was not our usual experience.

WHO ARE YOU AND WHY ARE YOU COPYING ME

Our next stop was guardalavaca, a town which we heard had stunning beaches, and there didn't seem like there was a bus directly there. The woman at the casa  said she could arrange a collectivo which would go directly there, with no changes, which would take 5 hours. We agreed to leave the next morning.

As we had started breakfast there was a knock on the door, the transport had come early. We are as fast as we could, and found a truck waiting for us, similar to the ones that carry pigs to the slaughterhouse, lined with metal benches. We got in, unsure whether this was going to be our punishment for the next 5 hours. We drove around town, picking 10 more people up, until one of the drivers announced that because of the heavy rain we could not take the road and would have to take a boat over the river instead. Okay, sure, this was definitely not going to be a one vehicle affair then. We were taken to the river, where 2 row boats were waiting for us. Our bags were precariously balanced and we squashed in for the ride. We got to the other side, expecting to have a jeep waiting for us, but no, instead we were greeted by a number of horse and carts in which we were piled into, and were lurched through the muddy trails of a forest. By this time we reached a road, we were only about 5km away from where we started and an hour and a half into the journey. The 5 hour journey was definitely not happening. But at least we were now in a jeep and making some progress. After a quick stop for all the staff to grab a 9am beer, we continued for another hour and a half, until a petrol station, where we were moved to another jeep. This took us for another couple of hours to the nearest city, where we were handed back some of our money and told that we would be dropped off at another collectivo stop and we could use the returned money to get another car. We had just enough time for Jonno to run around in a frantic search for something vaguely edible for lunch, which was almost impossible to find and the only option was a sort of deep fried crumpet, before taking our 5th vehicle of the trip the last leg of the journey to Guardalavaca, totaling the journey time to 8 hours.
Whilst we were waiting for this last vehicle, one woman asked us where we were staying and we showed her the address arranged by the previous Casa, to which she exclaimed 'that's my neighbour!'. Turns out, the place was so small it was pretty much inevitable that we would bump into her neighbour- the residential area consisted of about 5 blocks of flats.

Stage 1- extremely uncomfortable truck

Stage 2- row boat

Stage 3- horse and cart

Oncoming traffic

Stage 4 and 5- jeeps

We were greeted by our host, Dayse, who sympathetically listened to our 'all inclusive' journey story and gave us coffee, telling us we could relax on the balcony in the rocking chairs. Not long after, an English man burst in, asking if he could use the WiFi. WiFi? In a house in Cuba? Wasn't that the same as asking if there was WiFi in the Amazon?  To our amazement and utter shock, Dayse actually did have WiFi in the flat, albeit extremely slow and only limited to 30 hours a month so it was mostly switched off. But when it was on it could be used by numerous devices so we had the luxury of tapping into the WiFi a couple of times a day.
This English man claimed he needed to check his emails as he was in the middle of an insurance claim as his boat had been damaged in the hurricane in Puerto Rico, although really he just wanted to talk. A lot. In fact, we were kept for hours waiting for a pause in his narrative before we could escape to get some food. In this time, we learned that as a retired man he spends some of his time on his boat but some of his time in Cuba, where he had managed to find a Cuban lady 30-40 years his junior, and intentionally or unintentionally conceived a child who was now 4 years old. He married the lady, but she wouldn't leave Cuba and had been denied a visitor visa into the UK even if she wanted to, so it left him making trips into Cuba every so often to visit his wife and child. His wife was also staying in the Casa, but they had left their child with her family, which gave us the impression that while he liked seeing her,  he wasn't completely keen on being the hands on father of a toddler in his 60s or 70s.
After managing to make an escape to find some dinner, we discovered there was one main local place to eat, and for around $1 for a chicken and rice meal and 0.25 cents for an omelette with bread, it became our regular go to place for our stay in Guardalavaca.

 Pretty much the whole town of Guardalavaca here

Guardalavaca, or 'Save the cow' is mainly visited by tourists for the all inclusive resorts, and there is not much to do except visit the beach. Which is very pretty. After managing to escape after listening to another hour of monologue (Dayse saved us by ushering us out the door, talking to us in very fast Spanish so he couldn't understand) we took a walk to the beach, and although it was fairly overcast, found a spot under a tree to chill, or chill as much as possible despite at least 5 local people around us playing their music on speakers as loudly as possible.
It wasn't a bad way to spend a day, so we decided to stay another night and repeat this the next day, learning our lesson and going further down the beach to get a bit more peace.

Not sure who is watching the cow but top marks for the beach

This boy just loves the sand

Two tough days of beaching

We had now ticked off all our places we wanted to visit in Cuba, but were still 800km from Havana which we needed to get to for our flight to Mexico. We decided to try and get it done in one painful night bus leaving from the nearby city of Holguin, so took a taxi for an hour to the main bus station to get our tickets, hoping we could store our bags there too and kill a day in Holguin. As we got to the bus station, a guy outside asked us if we wanted a collectivo to Havana, it would take 9 hours and it would cost less than the bus and leave at 1pm. It was still long, but sounded better than a night bus so we agreed. We expected to be waiting a lot later than 1pm for more people to want a collectivo for such a long journey, but at about 1.15 we were told it was ready to go.
It was an actual car which was also surprising, although sitting in the middle seat of a small car wasn't the most enjoyable experience, especially when the journey totaled 11 hours in the end. Luckily our arranged Casa was awake to expect us at midnight, and the sleep in an actual bed was far better than a bus.

'Fatherland or death'. Friendly.

We had 2 full days in Havana before our flight, which we used wandering around the old town again, discovering the less touristy more run down areas, finding a China town which was only a sign and no other hint of anything Chinese, and dreaming of eating something other than bread or flavourless pizza. We also took a trip to a place called 'Fusterlandia', about 15km out of town, which was a bizarre colourful tiled building created by an artist with lots of vibrant sculptures. Unfortunately, on the way back we had to change buses and while waiting for our second bus we were discovered by our stalking, taking advantage of the tourists to pay for an expensive lunching friend Daniel. He didn't directly ask us why we didn't get in contact with him to stay with him again in Havana and luckily he did say he had other people staying at his flat, but he made us reassure him that when we come back to Cuba or any of our friends do we will be sure to stay with him. Of course, of course, we want to supply you with endless free meals...

Does it have a big old building and an old car? Its probably Havana

The entirety of Chinatown. 

I'm guessing this is state approved? 

Sheila's wheels posse

WHY ARE YOU SO SMALL?

We initially thought that our only option to get to the airport was by taxi which would cost $25, then we found a place marked on the map as a bus to the airport, which had to be cheaper than the taxi. We  weren't expecting it to be so cheap- 1 local peso ($0.04) each. More crowded and sweaty, but it meant we had money left to change into Mexican pesos. Result!

Fusterlandia- When you accidentally order 20 tonnes of tiles on ebay and have a lot of time to kill

Cuba, you have been both interesting and frustrating. You have given us a taste of what a society developed without capitalism is like, and we are not ashamed to say we would like some back. Bring on 20 different brands of everything!

Half of a half of a half of a half of our heart is in Havana, but we were happy to leave it there

Cusco and Machu Picchu

We arrived in Cusco at around midday, after a 17 hour journey which, as usual, not much sleep was had, particularly due to the fact that the route wound up and down mountains, and at times the altitude made it harder to breathe. We checked in to our hostel, surprisingly run by a guy from East London, and had an hour to sleep before going to explore. Cusco is at 3,800 metres above sea level, and was definitely a lot colder and wetter than Ica- a lot more layers were needed! It is also the most tourists we have seen so far in South America as pretty much everyone who comes to see Machu Picchu stops here. 

The Incas welcome us to the city

We had booked onto a walking tour, which turned out to be a difficult affair as it was run by only one guy- some of us needed the tour in English but others could only speak Spanish. The guide spoke in English and a member of the group translated it to Spanish but sometimes louder than the guide so required a lot of concentration to focus on what he was saying.

The guide showed us a few important buildings, cathedrals and statues, and took us to a place where a woman kept 2 Alpacas and a llama for photos with tourists. The woman kept moving one Alpaca's face to look like it was kissing the person in the photo, the Alpaca was not impressed at all and was doing an Alpaca version of rolling it's eyes. The rest of the tour was basically about rocks. Interesting the first time, but somewhere after the 10th rock stop I got lost. Basically some of the walls in Cusco are originals built by the Incas, they used big rocks and chipped away at them to make them for together.

Apparently if you discard half the city and draw a vague puma shape on it, it looks like a puma...

Hairy beggars

Rocks- the main content of the tour

Before Cusco we had been debating whether we were going to go to Machu Picchu.

Reasons for:
- Wonder of the world
- ‎We are in the neighborhood
Reasons against (according to our research):
- Expensive, probably not worth the cost (Train there and back $200 each, passes $50 each)
- ‎Probably overcrowded and filled with tourist tat
- ‎Probably a disappointment
- ‎Difficult to arrange at short notice (Inca trail needs to be booked months in advance)
- ‎-Jonno said no to any 4 day hikes similar to the Inca trail to get there

We had decided that we would get to Cusco, enquire at some of the tour agencies, look at what the options were and if it was worth it.
We stopped at a tour agency with a sign stating MACHU PICCHU $88 USD. Apparently this included transport to within 11km of the town below Machu Picchu (we would have to walk the rest of the way, there is no public road to the town), a night in a hostel, the entrance fee, a guide and 2 breakfasts.
This seemed like a pretty good deal, so we booked it for a few days time.
We also booked a trip to a place called Rainbow Mountain (immediately sounds magical), and I had read good reviews on. Unfortunately it did require a 3am wake up to leave at 4am, a prospect that Jonno was not jumping for joy about. We were still tired from the lack of sleep on the bus, so gave ourselves one rest day before Rainbow Mountain and one rest day before Machu Picchu. We had a plan.

Looking out onto the main square

Doesn't really look very delicious, more like a weasel sausage

Yes you should look embarrassed, no fashion sense at all

Unfortunately, the evening before our Rainbow Mountain trip Jonno's stomach decided to kick off again (it might have been the thought of the early morning that freaked it out) and still hadn't improved by the morning. I had read it was a hard hike- 2-3 hours each way, reaching 5,100 metres above sea level- probably not a great idea for an ill person. So while Jonno went back to bed, I headed out on my own to walk to where the bus was going to pick me up. Waiting on a dark street on my own at 4am was a slightly unnerving experience, especially as the bus was 45 minutes late. Finally it arrived and I climbed on for the 3 hour drive to our breakfast stop. After a standard breakfast of bread rolls, jam and coca tea to prepare us for the altitude, we had another 35 minute drive to the starting point of the hike. The guide said he would meet us at the top and left us to it.

Views from the bus on the way

As Jonno will most certainly tell you, I don't do slow hiking, and with only a couple of stops for photos I reached the top in an hour and a half. The last part was definitely tough, the path was steep and the air was thin.
At the start of the hike it was grey and overcast, with the odd snowflake falling. At the top, the cloud cover meant initially I couldn't see much. After about 10 minutes, the clouds cleared and revealed a pretty amazing view- a whole mountain range in stripes of different colours. 

The start of the walk

Watching the fog clear

Finally I see the rainbow!

A view worth waiting for

However, the clear sky didn't last long and after another 20 minutes a snowstorm hit. This wasn't so pleasant, but I hadn't seen anyone from my group or the guide to see if I could head down. I waited at the top, getting colder and colder, until finally the guide appeared and I told him I was going back down. I started to run down to keep warm, and about half way down the storm suddenly cleared and made way for a beautiful blue sky and some stunning scenery. 

Mesmerising clouds

It took a while for everyone else to return to the bus, and after a quick lunch stop we were heading back to Cusco. The altitude hadn't affected me while I was walking, but on the bus I developed a pounding headache and had to make a run to get some coca sweets in Cusco which seemed to help. 

Another rest day followed- most of the day it rained heavily so blog writing and tea drinking were the main activities.

Apparently this is the land of crazy hats

The day after we had been instructed to meet at the main plaza at 7am- about a 15 minute walk from where we were staying. We arrived at 6.45 and it was only then that Jonno realised he had left his camera memory card in the room and had to make a dash to get it- nothing like a last minute panic.
We were met by a guy who was collecting people from various parts of the plaza and herding them into one place. We were then taken to a coach, and once we were all sat down started asking people if they wanted to get a different vehicle, they had overbooked the seats. 

The bus took 7 and a half hours to reach the point where we were dropped off, within that time the temperature had risen by about 20 degrees but they had still kept the heating on- it was a relief to be out of the bus. The guy on the bus said a few brief words in Spanish and then left, leaving the group looking bewildered. The only bit we caught was that we had to be back at the same place the following day by 3pm. It was only when we questioned someone working in the restaurant where we were dropped off that we found out that we had to go to the main plaza when we got to the town and would be met by our actual guide there.
We then had to walk the 11km along the railway tracks- the only way of reaching the town, Aguas Calientes. It took us about 2-2 and a half hours for us to walk it, every so often having to step to the side when the train passed (it was slow with a blaring horn and bright lights- impossible to miss).

Of course, the only way.. to walk along the train tracks. Generally not approved of in the UK

Views along the walk

What's that doing there?

When we arrived at the plaza, we found a chaotic mess of 10-15 guides shouting out names of people they were waiting for, and bunches of tourists without guides standing or sitting around. We approached each guide, showing them our reciept, but they all shook their heads.
We waited, and waited- every so often doing another round of the guides to check.
As we were waiting I made a friend, who had little to no eyesight and all he wanted to do was to climb on my lap to fall asleep. I wasn't going to say no to cuddles! 

Determined to be a lap dog

After 2 hours of waiting and still no guide, in desperation Jonno asked one of the other guides if we could use his phone to call the tour agency we booked with. After a few tries she answered and spoke with the guide whose phone it was. From what he explained, it seemed like she had messed up and actually not arranged a guide, and would sort something out last minute. It looked like we did have accommodation booked though, and we were taken to the hostel called 'Denny's House', although apparently there was more than one Denny's House- we were in a different one. We finally arrived at the right Denny's House- it was nicer than expected, a double room with a private bathroom- and the guy at the check in desk explained our guide would meet us at the hostel at 8pm. Just enough time to get some dinner.
The guide knocked on our door at 8.30, and said we needed to get to the plaza for 6.20am the following day. Because there wasn't time for him to get our passes we did not have the option of walking up as we had been originally told, we had to take the bus which was an extra $12 each one way. Even though I would have rather walked, it seemed like we didn't have much of an option.
Another early wake up, breakfast at 5.45am and we walked down to the plaza, half expecting to not find our guide.
He was there, and there was time for another quick cuddle with my doggy friend and to give him some breakfast snacks. We were given our tickets and shown where to buy the bus tickets.

Morning cuddles!

It had been raining heavily all night, and the rain still hadn't stopped by the time we got to Machu Picchu. We were directed to our English speaking guide, who congratulated the group on walking up 20 steps and told us the best places for selfies. Exactly as we had expected, most of the time we were in thick clouds, which gave Machu Picchu a mysterious feel but wasn't wonderful for the views. 

Perfect weather

Our first sights of Machu Picchu...somewhere...

As instructed, must take selfie here

The guide explained how Machu Picchu was discovered over 100 years ago, and originally looted until an archaeologist started its protection. He told us about how the Incas lived, making terraces to grow vegetables and accessing the spring water from the mountain. They believed in the Gods of nature- mainly the air (represented as a Condor bird), the land ( a Puma) and the underworld (a Snake). When disasters happened they would make sacrifices to the Gods- first animals then children. 

Here are some more misty pictures

If I were you, child, I would not sit on the human sacrifice table....

The tour took around 2 hours, and even though we could have spent another hour looking around Machu Picchu before walking back, we were wet and cold and decided a coffee stop in town was more preferable. And shortly after we left Machu Picchu, the rain stopped and it became a lovely sunny day.

A long walk back along the train tracks, another 7 hours in a bus and we were back in Cusco. (Even though I boarded the bus as 'Diana Fanacas'- assuming we didn't steal somebody else's seats!)

It wasn't the worst experience ever, and Machu Picchu itself was interesting, but the tour was so rushed and badly organised which meant we couldn't fully appreciate it. If we did it again, we wouldn't have booked a tour and just do it ourselves- we could have known where we were staying, taken more time in Machu Picchu and the town itself (it's actually a nice chilled town) and been able to go in better weather (apparently in this season it's pretty much always raining in the morning and sunny in the afternoon).
But we did it. We were pretty done with Cusco too, so even though we are sick of buses, onto another bus to Puno!