taco's & toucan's travels ~ 2019

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DAY 36

Week 6

BARACOA (Guantánamo, CUB) to SANTIAGO DE CUBA (Santiago de Cuba, CUB)

Friday April 19^th, 2019

TODAYS MILEAGE – 149 miles / 240 kilometres

TRIP MILEAGE – 17,015 miles / 27,383 kilometres

To say I was a bit dusty this morning would be one hell of an understatement. Thanks to my casa mates Derek and Victor plus a liberal amount of 'Vitamin R', I climbed on the bus feeling six different shades of shit and a bit green around the gills and for the 6½ hour bus ride into Cuba’s second largest city and former capital Santiago de Cuba.

Being that it was just after 2PM, we headed straight over to Restaurante Hostal Aurora, for a casual sit down meal, essentially in the back yard of a locals house, that is operating as both a restaurant and lodgings.

Suitably fed & watered, we headed off on our orientation walk which encompassed visiting the oldest cathedral in the country - Santa Basílica Metropolitana Iglesia Catedral, as well as Parque de la Alameda, Céspedes Park and Parque la Placita en Santiago de Cuba.

As a group, we were able to check into our five separate casa’s for the night, with mine being Casa Thay, a short 15 minute walk from the centre of town.

We all met up around 8:30PM to go visit the city’s only 4 Star hotel - the Iberostar Casa Granda Hotel, to take in the evening skyline and have some dinner.

Dinner being the operative word - I waited over an hour for a cold ½ roast chook that obviously died of dehydration - as it as dry as a bastard calf. The "meal" was accompanied with tinned beans and peas as more of a plate filling after-thought.

Most of the others decided to continue on to the Casa de La Trova to test out their Salsa steps with the locals, but seeing that it was close to pumpkin hour, I decided to pull up stumps and hit the fart sack - as you can't ever get enough beauty sleep ya know.