Cruising the
Sierra Maestre
Day 2
Holguin to Bartoleme Maso: Across the Sugarcane Plains
65 miles
Heading south out of Holguin,
I join hundreds of cyclists headed for work. I'm an object of curiosity,
and it makes me feel a little self-conscious - a six-foot-four, 200-pound
gringo speeding through swarms of smaller people on ancient clunky bikes.
But actually my bike - a Schwinn ten-speed bought second-hand in 1973 - is
older than those around me. Most were imported soon after the Soviets cut
off subsidies in the early 1990s. When the Russian oil stopped, Fidel
bartered tons of sugar for thousands of Chinese-made bikes. Funny that the
most environmentally sound form of transport became dominant only when the
economy went into the crapper.
It gets hot fast in the Oriente, and thirty miles from Holguin I start to ration my water and stop every 20 minutes or so. OK, so I'm not in shape. Maybe I was a bit overambitious in my route planning.
A man in his mid-30s comes up from behind and starts pedaling beside me. He tells me he teaches agriculture at a nearby technical school. Then the conversation takes a turn that will become very familiar by the time the trip is over. It's a combination of curiosity, flattery and hard-luck story. What is New York like? America is a great country. His wife died recently. It's his daughter's birthday but he has no money to buy her a present. When our paths part, 10 miles outside Bayamo, I give him a box of ballpoint pens for his students. Like everyone else I give pens to, he looks disappointed. (The idea of giving away ballpoint pens came from Wally and Barbara Smith (see www.bicyclingcuba.com). It's the only advice they gave me that didn't pan out. From what another Cuban told me, it's easy for ordinary Cubans to obtain pens: The government rations them to schools, and teachers and administrators "liberate" them and sell them for cash to supplement their food rations.)
By the time I reach Bayamo,
I'm dehydrated and exhausted. I pull over at a refreshment stand operated
by an elderly couple. At this point I still don't have any pesos, so I
offer them a dollar for 10 bottles (2 pesos each at the unrealistic
official rate of P20:USD1). They look a bit flustered, then proudly show
the dollar bill to their friends and start serving up drinks. I sit in the
dirt and drink bottle after bottle. They bring me some patties and fried
plantains. Their son walks over with a wrench and starts to adjust my
brakes. And finally they count out 10 pesos in change, which I try to turn
down, but they press the bills into my hand. What a country!
I'm still a good 20 miles from my destination of Bartoleme Maso- a
sugarcane factory town at the foot of the Sierra Maestre - so I hit the
road and speed through Bayamo. I fall in next to a lovely girl on an
ancient road bike with a derailleur, the first I've seen. I say "buenas"
and she nods in acknowledgement, but it's like trying to keep up with the
club racers in Central Park - she leaves me in the dust.
About 10 miles later I notice that the mountains are on my right and
realize that I'm headed east, not west. By the time I get back to Bayamo
and on the right road, I realize that I'm never going to make it to Maso.
Then I see a small building with a "Cubataxi" sign over the door
and, wonder of wonders, a big air conditioner in the window. In a flash
I'm inside bargaining for a ride to Maso. Fourteen dollars? Deal. Then I
look in my wallet and realize that about half of the $500 I brought is
gone. I take the taxi anyway - when I can tear myself away from the
air-conditioned waiting room - and spend much of the ride berating myself
for my carelessness.
In Bartolome Maso I go to the Villa Santo Domingo, a peso hotel ($20 for
me) and soak my knees in the pool. At the bar a young man introduces
himself in impeccable English as an employee of the Ministry of Tourism.
We talk about the U.S. trade embargo, the internet, ecotourism - subjects
beyond the reach of my college Spanish. He tells me that the embargo alone
is responsible for Cuba's poverty. Though I'm no fan of the embargo, I
find this reasoning flawed, but I keep my opinions to myself. He also
tells me that he has access to the internet, but what he calls access
turns out to be ability to ask someone in Havana to do a search and send
him whatever pages pass muster with the ministry's censors.
He confirms that tomorrow's route, the road over the Sierra Maestre,
exists. Others have told me it's a mapmaker's fantasy. As it turns out,
the truth is somewhere in the middle.
Owning a bike is a big deal in Cuba. Think of this as a parking lot full of Range Rovers and BMWs.
Welcome to the wide open spaces and empty roads of Granma Province. Yes, it's just what it sounds like - the English word Grandma