Triblog

The Western tip of Cuba angles towards the south, pointing directly across the entrance to the Gulf of Mexico at Cancun, 250 kilometers away. Twelve days on the road, 1600 kilometers total, from Baracoa at the far Eastern end of the island. The final 12 km of our cross-country bike trip followed a deserted beach road through the Reserva de Biosfera Guanahacabibes. This extremity has the appearance on a map of a steelhead trout, with its curved over-hanging snout. We were on the upper portion of the lower jaw, so the water of the Bahia de Corrientes was to our right, or northwest, as we cruised towards Maria La Gorda, our final night’s hotel. This is not the absolute western end of Cuba. That would be Cabo de San Antonio, on the Northern peninsula (the upper snout of the steelhead). But apparently, the land there is swampy, the roads are terrible, and there is no acceptable over-night casa. So we head for “Fat Mary”, named for a large, accommodating lady of the pirate era. When the sailors she was servicing grew tired of her, so the story goes, they dropped her at this lonely spot, and named the place in her honor.

The placid, deserted waters within the large Bahia formed by the steelhead’s upper and lower jaws protect one of the region’s most extensive and best preserved coral reefs. The only activity along this otherwise vacant beach is found at the eponymous hotel, where scuba divers from Europe and Canada congregate for the low prices, uncrowded waters, and superb submarine environment. Bikers were clearly an afterthought, if the quality of the road was any indication. It seemed to have been chip sealed decades earlier, and the subsequent years of rain, wind, and waves had washed away much of the surface smoothness, leaving a pebbly, jarring tarmac, with frequent potholes. Those holes were not a real hazard, as they could be easily seen. Still, the road was rough on my shoulders, and after 75 miles of riding that day, distinctly unwelcome.

I had been covered the previous 20 miles by myself through the scrub jungle of the Reserva, equally uninhabited. The Racer Boys had sped ahead, the stragglers were being picked up by the bus, and I was left in No Man’s Land. But the day was still Cuba Perfect. A temperature in the mid-high 80s (F), a breeze at my back, unthreatening puffy cumulus clouds drifting in from the northeast, every now and then shading the sun, which was filtering through the trees hugging the road’s edge. The bus caught me at the junction separating the northern from the southern peninsula, and I learned Cheryl had gotten back on her bike, determined to ride the final beach stretch.

I slowed down, waiting for her to roll up, which she did after about five miles. We slowly pedaled the last 5 km together, feeling relief, gratitude, and a bit of sadness, marveling at what we’d done. THe road ahead curved to the left, a harbinger of the upcoming resort. We were nearly there, not one flat tire, not even a spill…

Suddenly, the bike hit an unseen bump in the road. The front wheel kicked, the back wheel skidded, but I felt I could control the beast, stop pedaling, re-orient my weight, and return to forward motion. Somehow, all the usual maneuvers wouldn’t work, and I ended up ass over tea kettle, lying on the road, cursing unintelligibly, frightening my poor wife a bit too much.

“Are you all right?” she shouted.

I held my my left elbow, which I knew had taken the brunt of the fall, and would be bleeding from the usual loss of skin on the forearm just in front the the funny bone. Yep, blood was flowing there, along with my leg, where I’d encountered the handlebar as I flew forward after the bike was jerked down.

She did a slow walk-around, and announced, “Uh, your front wheel is taco’d. Or potato-chipp’d. I don’t know what you call it. The wheel won’t turn”

This thought, that my bike might have been damaged as well as my skin, roused me out of my still blubbering oaths, into some sort of action. First, make sure I wasn’t bleeding too much. Cheryl, the nurse, assured me it would be all right.

“Yeah, what do you know,” I grumbled, having suffered way too many gouging holes in my arms in precisely that spot, including one set of stitches. I knew it would be weeks, months, maybe, before it healed over, and I was left with a jagged penny-sized white slab of scar tissue. Oh well, at least I can’ t see it easily in that location.

I turned my attention to my bike. Nope, the front wheel would not turn. But it was not bent. Something odd here…Oh, the handlebars are askew! I must have been stopped with so much force that my tight grip had torqued the bars to the left. Imagine your bike, with the wheels both pointing to the front, but the handlebars above the front twisted to the left about 30 degrees.

“How can you ride like that?” Cheryl wondered.

“Yeah, don’t worry,” I mumbled, as I faced the bike head on, gripping the front wheel between my knees. Grabbing the bars, I gave a good strong yank, and twisted the bars back to normal. The right gear shift was also turned sharply inward. Another application of brute force brought that back out, and the bike was once again rideable. I set about wondering just what had happened.

I walked back a bit to where the whole episode started, and discovered an unseen dimple in the road surface, about six inches around, and three inches deep. The afternoon sun had struck the pavement at an angle which obscured this depression from view, so I had not avoided it as I would have a more sharply demarcated pothole. Apparently, as the wheel got momentarily trapped in there, I twisted the handlebars with gruesome force attempting to regain control, and pedaled forward, thinking they were pointed in the direction of my travel. Which, of course, they were not. My poor brain did not grasp this, and so I steered myself right into a fall. Every bike crash has its own unique odd origin story; if things were normal, the fall would never have happened. So every few years, I fall down, lose some skin near my elbow, and soldier on, Luckily, I’ve never broken a collar bone; I think I must know how to fall with at least some grace.

The hotel was indeed only a half a klick away. We rolled into the open air lobby, and found both the early arriving riders, and the later arriving bus crew all there, happily enjoying their standard complimentary Cuba Libres in the thatched-rood shade. War stories were told, plans for evening swims arranged, and a final group photo choreographed.

Leandro Malagon, or at least the top half of him, rose monumentally above the deserted plaza. A stray hound emerged from the base, and I squatted to get the correct perspective on the heroic statue which jutted incongruously from the dense forest of Parque Nacional Vinales.

Joany and I had been biking 45 minutes west from Viñales when this memorial erupted near the entrance to Caverna de SantoTomas – supposedly the second largest cave complex in the Western Hemisphere. But we had no time for spelunking. Alejandro had fully occupied our morning with a visit to a tobacco farm.

“Today, we rest. First we go to the tobacco. Viñales is where the greatest cigars in Cuba are made.” Not grown; made. Apparently, growing tobacco is the easy part; making the cigars, of the correct shape, width, length, and taste, is the real art. It was from here that both Winston Churchill and Fidel Castro were said to get their favorite stogies.

Juan angled the bus through another impossibly narrow slot, and parked adjacent to a drying hut. The lecture on growing, cutting, and drying was mercifully short. The main attraction was a demonstration of cigar rolling and smoking. First, the cigar master cut, rolled, and wrapped a perfect cylinder. Then, he sought volunteers to check the quality of his product. Cheryl, of course, volunteered her lungs. I bought a box of ten for US$10.

Viñales is certainly the most scenic spot we toured in Cuba, snuggled in a protected valley abutting the eponymous national park. Large humps of rock rise 1000 feet or more from the valley floor. These “mogotes” bring to mind the sharply etched hills of classic Chinese paintings, covered with lush trees and vines. The valley floor is home to a multitude of tobacco farms, and small houses to service the crops. The town itself is not large, but has recently realized its tourist potential; scores of casa particulares have sprouted throughout the narrow residential streets. Seemingly every other family is now in business for themselves, so we had our pick of lodgings. With 15 in our group, we occupied three domiciles on the outskirts of town.

We would stay here two nights. “Today, you no ride, you need a rest. Tomorrow is a big day,” Alejandro asserted. Of course, being new to bike touring, his idea of a big day, and ours might be at some variance. A few of us took his offer to go on an afternoon explore; the tandem went East, Joany and I headed West. I hoped to make it as far as the St Tomas cave.

But I got sidetracked by the Malagones. The parking lot was empty, and I struggled to let Joany know I wanted to get through the chain blocking entrance. He rousted a middle aged woman out of a small guard booth; she appeared glad for some business, and finally let me know it would cost about US 25¢ for me to enter. The whole time I wandered the site, taking a few photos and video, she kept a very close eye on me, almost as if she suspected me of intending damage.

With my rudimentary Spanish skills, supplemented by 3 years of Latin in high school, I pieced together the basic story. There were twelve local farmers who fought a great battle near here. All but two were buried in tombs on-site, none of them dying in the battle itself. They seemed to serve as a great role model for patriotic Cuban behavior. Pretty mysterious, until I returned home to easy internet access, and learned the full story.

In August,1959, Fidel and his commanders, in power for only 6 months, visited the Caverna de Santo Tomas, and met with some local peasant leaders. The Revolution was still young, and pockets of resistance (“counter-revolutionaries”) remained, mostly hiding is isolated locales such as this. One such group was marauding amongst the nearby villages, and the local peasants, led by Leandro Rodrigues Malagon, asked for help. Fidel, whether on the spur of the moment or with great foresight, anointed Malagon as the head of the first cadre of the Revolutionary National Militia. Castro saw that sustaining his revolution required deep and full commitment by the masses of the people. They were already predisposed towards that, after the perditions of the Batista regime. But if their lives weren’t safe, if they could not farm without fear of losing their crops or even their life, they would not see Castro’s rule as any better.

So he asked Malagon to pick 12 men to become the local militia. He gave them 90 days to find and deal with the “fugitive from revolutionary justice”, “Corporal” Lara. He sent them to Managua for training. Once equipped and ready, they returned to their home hills. Using easily available local intelligence, they surrounded Lara’s hideout, and commenced a shoot-out, which seemed destined to end in a stalemate. Until Malagon, at the front of the house, shouted to his crew blocking the rear entrance, OK, now we bring out the Thompson [presumably referencing a machine gun, which they did not actually have]. This frightened the Lara group, who surrendered immediately.

The Malgones become Heroes of the Revolution, and were paraded around the country, serving as an example of how others could help defend and expand the revolution. They all lived to ripe old ages, and as they began to die off, Fidel’s brother Raul decided a memorial to them in the home valley, where Fidel had the idea for the National Militias, would be fitting. Now, 10 are entombed amidst fountains (which have a curiously similar sound to machine gun fire) and cobbled walkways. Two are still alive, their resting sites still waiting.

Big Jim had been chuckling nervously about today’s ride for the proceeding two weeks.

“ ‘Americano. A masculine name, but a bitch of a climb.’ That’s what it says on the website itinerary.” He had mentioned this almost daily, and had built the day into something to be frightened of. By this time, we all knew each other’s proclivities and abilities as cyclists, and easily grouped ourselves into several units based on speed and ambition.

The Racer Boys scurried out of the EcoResort soon after 8 AM. Unlike most of our tour across the island, we were now in serious hill country – the Cordillera de Gunaiguanico – which makes up most of the western tip of Cuba, the part which drops down into the Gulf of Mexico like an index finger gently pointing southwest. We started on the eastern edge of this massif, in the Santo Rosario mountains. Much of the area is protected as a natural preserve (like our national forests), with true national parks hidden within. The hills are heavily forested, the roads sinuous, uncrowded and seriously steep in places.

We covered the first 15 miles in about an hour and a quarter, seeing almost no vehicles of any sort, horse drawn, pedal powered, or internally combusting. Then we hit the only real climbing we had this entire trip – 535’ in 1.3 miles. I was trailing the group at the bottom, but found myself passing everyone except our resident pro, as the others either stopped to rest, or simply got off their bikes and walked.

The final section was rutted, almost gravelly. The grade stiffened past 8% to 10, 12, 14, peaking at 15%. I paper-boy’d towards the top, panting a bit, heart pounding. Luckily, the shade and elevation combined to ease my sweat rate a bit from the typical tropical torrent of Cuba.

At the very top, the grade lessened more and more, and I knew I had reached the summit. The trip downhill was equally steep. Coming up the other side were a couple of local riders, breathing heavily, but cruising up just fine. Several bone-shaking miles later, John rolled by me, more courageous in the potholes than I was willing to risk. Near the bottom, I saw a small pullout, with a shady snack shack and a stellar black Chrysler from the mid-fifties – worth a look.

“Hey, John, look, on the right,” I pointed at the car. “I want a picture.”

Either he didn’t hear or he didn’t care; intent on making time to the flats below, he swept right on by.

Several hundred meters later, I heard shouting to my left. Similarly intent on making downhill time while I could after all those days of endless flats, I didn’t see Tony or Joany at the outdoor beer stand. I turned around, and we shared our traumas on that “bitch of a climb.”

Tony allowed as, “Man, that was steep! I had to finally get off and walk.” Tony, while a stronger cyclist than I on the flats, is from Illinois, where people say “Wanna do some hills?” “OK, which overpass?”

Joany and I exchanged a smiling high-five when it became apparent we were the only two who had stayed on our bikes the whole way up.

Strava is the cyclist’s gold standard for comparing your performance to others. Riders all over the world upload their GPS files from their bike computer, and these rides are then immortalized online for all to see. Competition is encouraged via “KOMs” (King of the Mountain) segments (there are QOMs as well). Some cyclists live and die by their performance on these little stretches of road which are used for bragging rights. I had paid no attention to all this for Cuba until I went back to check just where we rode, so I could write with some semblance for veracity. https://www.strava.com/activities/926344824/segments/22618447005

Surprisingly, because internet connectivity is so poor and spotty on the island, Strava users by the score have their Cuban rides documented, just as everywhere else on the planet. On Americano, there are several key segments. The major climb, listed as Category 3, has me 20th/109. And among 65-69 year olds, I am ranked first. I also have two other age group KOMs and a downhill KOM from that day.

At the bottom, we re-grouped in a shaded gazebo near Candelaria, dribbling in by ones and twos, each with a story of success or misery. It turned out that only three of us had actually ridden up the entire climb: Joany, our pro; myself; and Cheryl. When I told her this news, she gave the widest grin, and told me how much fun she’d had, climbing just like at home.

Then we crossed the freeway, and started a 30 mile flat and steamy ride into San Diego de Los Baños where we boarded the bus, heading towards Valle de Viñales.

After cycling all morning and into the afternoon from Playa Giron, along the Bay of Pigs, we headed across the swamp lands of southern Matanzas, towards the town of Australia. The odd name of this little municipality stems from the local custom of naming sugar factories after the various continents. While sugar is no longer processed from cane here, the smokestack still features the name in prominent vertical capital letters.

“Tonight we stay in Charco Azul,” Alejandro announced. This sent ripples through the back of the bus, as the itinerary had listed San Antonio de Los Baños for the night, 150 km distant. Scurrying through my trusted Maps.me, I found Azul 50 km further on, in the foothills of the northeastern mountains.

“There is a festival in San Antonio; there is no room at the hotel for us. The Chaco is an Eco-Resort, very new, very modern.”

And very far away. It was already after 3 PM, and given what we’d seen so far of Cuba’s highway “system”, we might not get there before nightfall. But after we loaded the bikes on board Juan’s bus, we entered a true freeway interchange, and found ourselves on a six-lane divided highway, heading towards Havana, traveling at 90-100 km/hour. While passing 60 year old cars belching black exhaust, going half that speed, horse drawn carts @ 15 kph, and even the occasional pedestrian. Twice, we went by packs of cyclists, more youth teams in training.

The land was relentlessly flat, pocked with sugar cane farms and the smokey processing factories which attend them. Around 5:30, we reached the outskirts of Havana, where the freeway inexplicably ended in a traffic jam on unmarked city streets, devoid of traffic lights or even directional signs. A half hour of that, and we got back to cruising at highway speeds.

Before nightfall, we turned off that freeway, and wound along ever narrower roads, into the hills, Jaun homing in on by-now-mystical town locale of Charco Azul. While it appeared on Maps.me, there was zero civilization surrounding it, and no obvious lodgings or restaurant.

The last turn took us onto a one lane path, steeply uphill, into a graveled turn-around surrounded by a series of stucco one story lodges on the left, a well-kept garden in the front, and a two story stone structure rising above a small bar and dining area. We learned this was “Casa de Piedra Charco Azul”, or “stone house at the blue puddle”. The puddle had been transformed into a small pool defined by a precise rocky rectangle, suitable for swimming.

Each couple received a key to one of the stucco bungalows. Inside we found the first truly modern (21^st century) interiors we’d seen in Cuba. All the doors closed properly, the toilets were sturdy, beds firm and comfy, beddings new and clean. What was this place?

Apparently a resort for bird watchers. Looking out from our private balcony into the surprisingly dense forest beyond, we heard (but did not see) feathered creatures calling to us as the sun set filtered through the leaves. Later, at dinner, we learned this is also a nature park, featuring hiking/equestrian trails. Clearly not for the Cubans, but meant for northern European visitors.

A stark contrast to our Soviet-era Hotel Playa Giron the night before. Set in an equally stunning spot, hard on the Caribbean shore, this concrete block edifice was filled with non-functioning tourist attractions, such as snorkeling, bodyboarding and a surf-side cabaret. We had likewise stayed in individual stucco’d cabins. But these were flaking, barely furnished, with creaky floors, leaky toilets, off kilter doors, and each set about 50 yards apart it’s neighbor, necessitating a lengthy walk to and from dinner and breakfast. The sea wall was crumbling. It may have served for Bulgarians or Muskovites fleeing an endless winter, but Northwestern Europeans would not tolerate it.

En la mañana, we would tackle “Los Americanos”, a ride through the surrounding nature preserve, up steep hills, down swooping curves, on traffic free roads. This was the source of excited chatter at dinner, nervous trepidation, and early bed times for all but one or two party boys, who found the two stool pool-side bar ample for their needs.