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Una ves mas calido saludos de su viajando amigos!
Unfortunately we had no luck getting the photos on. We managed to get wifi cards (the first we´ve found in Cuba) in Baracoa and sat in a Government run cafe but couldn´t get onto any .com websites! We also haven´t been able to look at gmail since leaving England.
We got the bus back over the mountains from Baracoa to Santiago where we stayed one night and enjoyed a chip sandwich with a cocktail and a beer in the terrace bar of the Casa Grande hotel, a faded colonial place overlooing the city´s main square.
Our Casa for the night, recommended in Baracoa, was disappointing as the room was windowless and the temperature stayed above 30 degrees during the night. We were up early the next morning for the 7 hour bus ride back through the centre of Cuba to Camaguey but when we got to the bus station we were offered the same price for a taxi that would drop us at our destination so we took this and headed off an hour before the bus would have left and in comfort this time as we were the only two passengers. The driver was returning to Havana so it made sense for him to try to get some fares on the way back home. For the first half an hour we merrily headed off in completely the wrong direction until we realised the mistake and turned around. We still made it to Camaguey three hours before the bus would have arrived. Unfortunately, the Santiago tout who brokered the journey between us and the driver must have told him that we would pay 35 Pesos each whereas we´d agreed 35 for both of us. Our driver stormed off cursing this guy and we dragged our luggage a short distance up the street to find our latest Casa.
While on the subject of transport, petrol is about 60p a litre but roads outside cities and towns are very quiet as no-one makes unnecessary journeys and few appear to use a car, if they own one in the first place, for pleasure or a day out. Most poeple use public transport - buses, trucks, bike taxis and horse and carts. Long but orderly queues form at bus/truck stops where a Mostardo (man or woman in a mustard-coloured uniform) issues tickets, prioritises passengers (women and children first) and prevents queue jumping and over-loading. We have also seen motorbike and sidecar combinations called Torpedos - these are old Russian Ural bikes with welded on additional passenger accomodation. They look good fun but possibly prone to separation if cornering too fast!
The chip sandwich must have sparked a yearning for familiar foods and so we treated ourselves to some Pringles (the first we´ve found in Cuba, at nearly 3 pounds a tube) and for three consecutive meals have shared a tuna fish sandwich with cheese (have had to fight hard to make sure they don´t sneak some poor quality, slimy luncheon meat in that is misleadingly called ham). We haven´t lost our appetites by any means but we both felt stuffed after the great food in Baracoa where we must have put on some weight.
The journeys from Baracoa to Santiago and from there to Camaguey have brought us to within easy striking distance of our Christmas stop-over so we can now relax a little and not worry that a transport hiccup could leave us a long way off or that we will run out of time.
Camaguey itself is a lovely city with many winding streets (unusual in Cuba where most places are layed out in a grid format) supposedly designed to confuse the pirates that used to invade. There are no ´must see´ sights but we´ve enjoyed our day and a half here wandering around, stopping at friendly coffee shops and, of course, eating tuna fish sandwiches! We also found a great pizza place in the evening and had a lobster and prawn pizza for 2 pound 50 (pizzas with tuna, from a tin, were more expensive!)
We´ve noticed that there´s no commercial advertising in Cuba. There are billboards and murals all over the island but these are connected with keeping the principles of the revolution alive and exhorting socialism, most with images of Fidel and/or Che, rather than pushing products, brands or services. Sadly the shops aren´t in a position or don´t have experience of how to show off what products they do have available - we´ve taken a few photos of examples of very badly dressed shop windows in Camaguey and will include these when we can get the photos onto the website.
La navidad viene, el ganso se esta volviendo gordo!
Love from Linda and Tony xx
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