The End Of The Road

Our luxury interlude ended at 9am (we were on Grix tours timings rather than the more pressing Exodus timings by now). Our taxi driver took us along the ocean road, tranquil seas, successful fishermen on a bridge, pelicans flying past and an oyster catching boat cruises past.

In Remedios we pick up our glistening blue hire car (complete with obligatory scrape down the rear driver's side. The charming guy completes our paperwork and we are on the road again (solo once more) by 10.15.

We head to Santa Clara for our first stop at the cigar factory (Arrgghh! they close at 11am until 1 pm - the lonely planet says midday - and we would need to go to an agency to buy a ticket too. Our fourth attempt to visit a cigar factory is again thwarted and we realise that perhaps it's not our destiny to manage this on our current trip (perhaps an excuse to return?).

We head back to the ring road, stopping at the museum of the train Che and his rebel comrades blew up. The armoured carriages are the setting for the photographs and artefacts from this event and the bulldozer used to derail the train are on display. The bullet holes are still evident and the location next to the train tracks is poignant. One can't help but reflect that it is only a question of the victor of this struggle that makes it a 'glorious' thing. At the risk of straying into political territory, I wonder if we be celebrating an IRA attack if they had succeeded by guerrilla tactics in taking control of Northern Ireland?

We set off for the Che memorial once more; this time, as it's a glorious sunny day, we were sure the museum would be open. We wandered around the various photos and artefacts from Che's time as a revolutionary and watched archive footage on an ancient TV. Well worth the visit and he was clearly a charismatic and driven individual - one wonders what he would think about the commercial use of his image since his death - he's probably spinning in his memorial crypt at this very moment at the idea of it.

Back on the road again by 12.30, we find our way to the A1 national autopista and head out towards Ciego de Avila and beyond. The motorway was built with great ambitions to link the entire country... Unfortunately money ran out when the Soviet Union collapsed and Cuba entered what they refer to as the 'special period' - which basically means it was truly in the s*** and had no money, no exports and no income. If the Greeks and Italians think things are bad at the moment, they have no idea how bad things can really get. Here they had no bailout plan to reject - all investment and financial stability ended virtually overnight.

The motorway is not even dual carriageway and is basically half a motorway, like they built one side and couldn't afford the other direction. The 3 lanes in total have to cope with both directions of traffic. We encounter cyclists, horses, stray piglets running onto the carriageway, but overall hardly any traffic. Eventually we reach the end of the road. Literally.

At Taguasco, at the time the excrement hit the rotating thingy, the money ran out and road ends abruptly. We continue our journey to Camaguey (pronounced Cama - hway) on the carreteras nacional (main highway). Sugar plantations and cowboy ranch country alternate along the route. At times it's a scene from an early Marlborough advertisement and we are transported to the Wild West. In other areas, we are surrounded by endless fields of sugar cane, punctuated by the chimneys for the sugar factories and the sweet acrid smell of the burning fields of sugar cane. After Florida, there are more cattle ranches and people line the edges of the highway selling huge rounds of cheese held aloft for passing motorists. By now, it's school hometime and as this is the Cuban Wild West, of course there are no school buses in sight. Instead the children hop up into the back of old wooden carts with side benches and return home on horse and carts.

At a place called 'Centro something' we stop at a parador and tuck into a jamon y queso bocadito (our earlier attempt to buy some snacks of biscuits and ritz cracker-type biscuits at a motorway service station was disastrous and we were now starving). A pleasant stop, sitting by the roadside and watching the world go by and some kids playing by a bridge nearby (not a computer game in sight). Now happily full, we set off again and instead of dumping the snacks in the bin, I suggest to Jon that we stop when we get to the bridge. I called the 3 young boys over and handed the offending articles out of the car window to them. They smiled and nonchalantly gave a polite 'gracias'. We drove off and I looked in the rear view window. Our rejected snacks had the 3 of them dancing an excited jig, hopping from foot to foot, examining the unexpected windfall. I was so glad I hadn't just chucked them in the bin, as I'd planned.

Camaguey has a fearsome reputation of labyrinthine streets (even José pronounced horror when I said we were driving there). I checked the map, decided we should enter by Calle Gomez and navigated perfectly to our destination, despite our first encounter with a bicycle Jineteros (otherwise known as scam artists preying on gullible unsuspecting tourists - neither of which description particularly fits Jon and I)….

The events were as follows:

On the outskirts of town, a guy on a bike knocks on the car window - we ignore him... He cycles furiously through narrow streets to stay ahead of us...

We continue along Galle Gomez, looking for the Lonely Planet recommended casa particulars, Los Vitrales. We pull up just before the casa and re-check our book, the bike guy knocks on the window again and says "Los Vitrales" and points and nods. He walks over to the front of the house & speaks to another guy, after much nodding the other guy comes back with him. I open the window.

He says, "You are here for my casa?"

"For Los Vitrales," I reply.

"This is my casa, Los Vitrales," he says, thrusting a laminated business card in the name of Rafael (the same name as is written for the owner in the Lonely Planet). "I am full at the moment, but my sister has a nice casa I can take you to." This sends my bulls*** radar into overdrive and I'm full of suspicion.

"I would just like to go inside your casa and take a look" I say, calling his bluff. He gets angry now

"I tell you this is my casa, I have no room, do you not believe who I am. See" he jabs a finger at the card to emphasise, "I am Rafael."

I stay in the car and wind up the window. We refuse to budge, so he walks back towards the casa and we see him slink past the front door and on beyond. The coast now clear, we get out of the car and head to the front door. A lady opens it and we ask for Rafael. A rather older and more reputable Rafael greets us and would you believe it, he has one room available and we gratefully snap it up straight away.

The simple room has a double bed, fridge, air con and bathroom, which is spotlessly clean and leads out to a leafy patio/courtyard. We take up his recommendation to go for a sun-downer on the roof of the Gran Hotel, which provides a spectacular view of all of the old city of Camaguey (renowned for its many squares with catholic churches). For dinner we head to La Isabella, an Italian restaurant set in an old colonial building and which, in a former life, was the local cinema (continuing the film theme, we sit in directors chairs, each or which has the name of some actor or director of note either internationally or in Cuba). We feast on bruschetta and cannelloni (me), lasagne (Jon) and relish a break from the usual Cuban fare. The price is ridiculously cheap and if not for a bottle of wine would have been less than £8 for both of us.