taco's & toucan's travels ~ 2019

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DAY 35

Week 5

BARACOA (Guantánamo, CUB)

Thursday April 18^th, 2019

TODAYS MILEAGE – 26 miles / 42 kilometres

TRIP MILEAGE – 16,866 miles / 27,143 kilometres

I done alright getting into bed by 11PM, but was awoken by my roommate coming home at 2AM – joys of adulating and having on one room key I suppose.

As mentioned earlier, our Hostal La Cueva is directly across the street from the local fire station and while there is some benefit to that in regards to response times if we need them, but not so much when an electrical fault saw a government building catch fire two blocks from our Casa.

I was awoken to a whole lot of banging, crashing, shouting & hollering, so I open the front door the see 4 firies (firemen) push starting one of the two fire trucks and then head off round the corner and then the siren stops. With curiosity getting the better of me, I followed the sound of the noise to see the building ablaze.

I head back to the mi casa after bit more of a wander around and sit down to breakfast to hear from our hosts that the water would be off for three hours as the towns water main water tank had to be refilled, due to the fire.

Today activities were split into two groups – one would undertake a 4 hour hike through the scrub to a waterfall and one that would visit some subsistence farmers to deliver essentials like detergents, toothpaste, toilet paper, colouring in pencils etc that we all chipped in for to purchase. I chose the latter and had the pleasure of experiencing one of those 'life moments'.

While standing in the middle of a coconut plantation, the farmer – Raphael, who was showing us around with a neck brace on, came up to me while his worker was demonstrating how to climb a palm tree. Raphael reaches out with is finger and traces the scar on my neck and then points to similar scar on his own neck. With our guide Victor translating we go over our injuries, treatments, the high & low’s and both coming away feeling a whole lot better for sharing our experiences. For me, it felt like I was conversing with a kindred spirit whose gone through the same shit and is just trying to live each day as it comes - as best we can.

From there it was on to the Río Toa for a paddle around in a leaky wooden boat and lunch on the banks of the river. Most of the afternoon was spent at Maguana Beach on Bahia de Cayoguaneque, one of the very few white sand beaches in Cuba.

We got back into town around 5PM and decided to meet up with everyone at the main casa - Casa Elvira, around 7:30 PM with a couple of bottles of Havana Club rum and a carton or two of the local Bucanero cervezas before partaking in a leisurely impromptu pub crawl down the main street of Baracoa.

I think the last time I looked at my watch, it was after two AM and I was out on our front stoop, with my roommate - Derek and Victor, polishing off a decent bottle or two of 'Vitamin R' that had mysteriously appeared and then subsequently evaporated - imagine that.