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

Salinas y Montañita

We read mixed reviews about Salinas. This was a place was supposedly a cheap, but therefore also very popular beach destination. We read that the weather is best between November and February, and as such, arriving then would be very crowded and busy, with people trying to sell you things left right and centre. We’d be arriving right inbetween this time period. The area was also supposedly somewhat upper market, with a yacht club and huge towering real estate overlooking the bay. We’d see how we liked it, but reviews were certainly polarized.

The bus from Guayaquil took us to a place called Santa Marta, where we hopped on another bus to Salinas. First impressions of the place were a little a different to what we had been expecting. The place with almost entirely deserted, with roads being built, pavements dug up and buildings being erected. We’re not quite sure where people were getting the impression of an extremely busy and posh place, because we certainly weren’t experiencing that. Not that we were complaining!

Luxurious!

Our hostel was quite nice, with a bar area overlooking the bay and all the amenities we could need in kitchens and air conditioning. Posh after all! We took the first day just to hit the supermarkets to stock up our little area of kitchen, and take a look up and down the beach and bay area. Not a bad place to chill for a while.

The following morning, we were awoken to drums, xylophones (they are a legitimate instrument here, not just something to fill up X in an alphabet song) and all manner of wind instruments filling up the streets. We took to the bar area where we had a great view over a procession working its way down the beach front, which included a guy being dragged along in a little cart behind a van, I’m not sure why but it was ridiculous to watch. The next float behind was setting off fireworks out of a beer bottle he was moving along the pavement. Safety isn’t a prime concern where there is entertainment value to be had.

There are two main points of interest in the area – La Chocolatera, the furthest most point in the peninsula with views of the sea all around, and La Loberia, another beach area with sea lions off the coast. We decided to walk to La Chocolatera first, as the map showed it as about a 4.5km distance, around an hours flat walk, easy peasy.

That was until we got about half way and found out that the area was also a huge military base. Whilst this wasn’t a real problem, it did mean all the direct roads were inaccessible, and we instead had to take several detours, adding another half an hour or so to the distance. Not only that, but the sun was a lot stronger than we had envisaged, so by the time we arrived there, we were grateful for the sight of a restaurant serving fruit juices. The views were okay – nothing remarkable that we hadn’t seen in other places, but I can imagine that it would be incredible if not usually near the sea as the waves were fairly intense.

From there, a path following the coast had been put up to walk directly to La Loberia. We arrived after about 30 minutes, and at first presumed that the sea lions hadn’t got the memo and couldn’t be seen. But then, we went onto the wooden deck at could see a rock in the distance full of them, so we weren’t entirely cheated out of that. The walk back from here should have been shorter, but again the military base was in all the wrong places, so we had to walk back the way we came just to follow the same roads. All in all, it was a very inconvenient location for a military base.

Ready to pick the flesh from our bones, or missing a friend for a Jungle Book re-enactment

Don't jump!

The next morning brought along another procession. We still don’t really know what these were in aid of, other than this one looked to be mostly children performing then followed by groups of adults who looked like they didn’t really want to be there, we presume parents. More free shows though! Not much left to do here, we took the bus back to Santa Marta and headed towards the next beach town and where we would spend Christmas Day, Montañita.

Montañita has a reputation as a surfing town, very touristy, especially with non-Ecuadorian nationals, with plenty of restaurants, bars (or at least popup street bars) and a party atmosphere. Knowing this, we decided to stay in a place a little out of town, as even in the places not regarded as party towns the music and noise can easily go on until silly o’clock in the morning. We found a place advertised as our own cabin, with terrace, kitchen and private bathroom. Sounded good.

When we turned up however, it had been a little oversold. The room was indeed a cabin, made of the finest wood and leaves, and it was huge (we had three double beds to choose from) with a private bathroom, but no kitchen to be seen. It seemed there was a central facility with a kitchen, however we got the vibe from the guy running the place that the kitchen was more of a ‘we will cook you something if you pay for it’ kinda deal. Onsite restaurant would have probably been more accurate. Either way, we’d booked it and it wasn’t awful. That said, we did have all manner of bugs, spiders and unidentified poos littered around most days, which was sub-ideal.

A great dane? Here?

A Great Dane with the same colourings as Ruby too? Where are we!?

Beach pups chilling

Already missing my daily breakfasts... 

Friendly fella

We didn’t do a huge deal whilst we were here, taking the time to try and recover a little as my illness still hadn’t passed. The only thing we did want to do however was the nearby ‘Isla de la Plata’, a small island about an hour off the coast of nearby Puerto Lopez, about an hours bus ride from where we were. We had been debating whether, whilst in the area, we would visit the Galapagos islands. However, being the time of year it is and us being cheap, we just couldn’t justify the costs, and instead opted for this place, far cheaper and with a similar ecosystem. We decided to do the trip on Christmas Eve, freeing up Christmas Day to relax, have a drink and speak to family back home. Yes, even a devoutly Catholic country such as this barely slowed down for Christmas Day, let alone the outright stoppage you get in most countries, and we did have the opportunity to go then.

By about 10am we were at the docks of Puerto Lopez, getting ready to board our boat, a roughly 20 seater with two engines on the back. The boat started off smoothly, whilst our guide was introducing himself in English and explaining what we’d be doing and seeing whilst there. This was fine. Once he had finished and checked if we had any questions however, he knocked on the ceiling and the engines opened up. At this point it felt a little bit like riding a rodeo, as we continually kept hitting huge waves and smashing back down. I can confirm that this isn’t something my stomach needed at the time.

Around 45 minutes in, the boats engines suddenly cut out and we slowed down to nothing. Confused for a moment, we soon realized why, as the guide pointed out to the side of the boat where we saw a pod of dolphins swimming alongside the boat. Diana audibly squealed ‘SHIT!’ with excitement. They were jumping out the water literally within touching distance. An American girl behind us whined that she wanted to swim with them. That wouldn’t be the last time she did something annoying, but we all just watched as they swam past the boat, bobbing in and out. We later found out we were particularly lucky here, as they usually only see dolphins once or twice a month. Merry Christmas to us!

Just before pulling into the island, we stopped at an area where apparently turtles sometimes were. The guide started throwing bits of fruit into the water and we all watched, wondering what might happen. Then a turtle happened, about the size of a flattened sheep. That was pretty cool. Over to the other side, big blue fish were swimming around (each about the size of one of those silly little handbag dogs). All very interesting!

Medium sized sheep I'd say

Runty chihuahuas

We arrived as the island and after a short wait for everyone to go to the bathroom and gather themselves, we headed uphill and were told there were two paths. One would be a shorter, flatter walk, where we’d likely see one species of bird up close, with a few others flying above, and views of the ocean. The other walk was a longer walk, where we’d see two up close and the rest above. Most people voted for the short walks, so the guides split off into English and Spanish groups, and we set off.

Almost immediately, we found our first roosting Blue Footed Boobies. Weird looking birds that have up to two offspring at a time, and mark their nest by shitting in a circle around it. Absolutely normal behaviour. What you won’t get from a photo alone is their weird vibrating necks, apparently an attempt to cool down like a panting dog. Bear in mind they were sat out in the middle of the paths in direct sunlight rather than under the shady bushes, I’m not sure these were the smartest animals of the bunch. The guide explained how to tell the difference between the males and the females, where the males were smaller and had smaller pupils in their eyes. The babies also apparently grew at what I would consider an alarming rate, where he said the absolute smallest ones were a few days old, and the ones almost the size of their parents were about 2 weeks old. Their feet start off white, and slowly turn blue as they reach maturity apparently.

Mind where you're putting your silly blue feet!

The path was full of them, with literally three or four nests of them every corner we took. On occasion they would make noises at us as we walked passed, clearly indicating we were too close (as said, they could have built nests off the path, but noooooo…). Anyway, interesting at first, but honestly once you’ve seen one booby you’ve seen them all.

The views were good, as we stood at a top of a cliff looking down you could see small schools of fish swimming around, the water was extremely clear. Overhead, blue footed boobies, masked boobies and frigate birds flew around, apparently albatrosses too, but I’m no birdyologist.

We walked back down and headed back to the boat for lunch and the last part of the tour, snorkeling amongst the different fish. I did take some video here, but I’m not sure if it relays just how close the fish got, on occasion I’d look behind me and one would be sneaking up and looking at me funny, they weren’t in the least bit timid. Eventually we returned to shore, a far less interesting trip back (although definitely more violent, I thought I might break my neck on the bumps at one point).

Christmas Day was a fairly quiet one, pancakes for breakfast (fruit and muesli for Diana), a frappucino on the beach and a few phone calls whilst chilling, then by evening a couple of cocktails and a walk down the beach. Wonderful! And my stomach felt better. Until the next day after the cocktails when it felt instantly worse than it ever had before. Wonderful!

Anyway, no time to feel sorry for myself, onwards to our next destinations – Cuenca and Loja, in preparation for our next border crossing!