We had a lie in this morning, alarm call was 6am - sadly I'm still not on Cuban time so was wide awake at 5!

We set off at 8, with the first section of the ride cycling through Varadero - we had a police escort through the town (this also happened yesterday at the end of the ride).

The Cubans have the utmost respect for the police here, so the 3 police motorcyclists kept the traffic well out of the way as we passed through the town.

After we passed through the town we headed out on the 'Central Road' - after a short delay due to a broken gear cable (not mine), we regrouped and headed on. Shortly after we turned off the central road and headed south. The ride today took us from the north coast of the island across the Middle and heading for the south coast.

The scenery today was not as varied and the majority of the cycling was on Tarmac road that went in a straight line for miles and miles!! We had one hill before lunch and were rewarded with a beautiful down hill with amazing views.

Lunch was in a town square, there wasn't a great amount of shade so it was a fairly quick stop. After lunch we had another 30km to complete and again this was on long straight, flat roads.

After about 20km we stopped at a cafe at the side of the road, 60 very thirsty ladies took full advantage of the ice cold drinks and ice creams!

A final 8 km took us to the end of the ride for today. We had a bus transfer to our hotel in Cienfuegos which is by the sea. Not as blue as last nights sea, but still incredibly warm. A large group of us went for a swim (trying to avoid the weed which seem to cover the bottom), after a very pleasurable 20 mins there was a minor panic when some of the girls found they had been 'stung' by something swimming in the water..,,a mass exodus ensued and we did the only sensible thing under the circumstances - we headed for the bar!

Despite the weather forecast showing thunderstorms every day while we are here we have not really seen any rain. There was the slightest shower today which lasted only a couple of minutes, but nothing at all like the down pours I had been expecting.