Day 7: Mambo de la Luna, Santiago de Cuba to Camaguey

Cuba, like many nations, could use a good highway system for the 1000km from Santiago to Havana. Maybe one day, if a method of recycling plastic drink bottles into roads pans out, as there is plenty of the former and less of the latter. They have a plan, and the first few kilometres out of Santiago de Cuba is a generally solid six-lane highway, but after a while it generally turns into a Scottish B road or WA country highway, one fairly narrow lane each way.

Only with horses and bicycles. Cuba is, I’m told, possibly the only carbon neutral country in the world, and they achieve this partly through not having two cars per person and 1000km of six lane highway (and cows grazing by the side of the road, or as we just encountered, occasionally wandering across the road). Rural speed limits seem to vary between 70-90km/h, but travelling at speed for any length of time is rare, as it usually doesn’t take long to catch up to the next horse-drawn cart or bicycle, which you’re expected to wait behind until it’s safe to overtake.

We have a taxi, with airconditioning and a driver who seems to know what he’s doing (even if Beberli is trying to teach him how to say “I don’t know how to drive” in English). He’s managing to avoid the bigger pot holes, which is a good start.

Our route from Santiago de Cuba to Camaguey was via Bayermo, a historic town known for being where the Cuban national anthem was composed and first performed, and also for burning most of itself down so that the Spanish wouldn’t occupy it during the failed revolution of the late 19th Century. Maybe they didn’t have any handy pirates around to do the job for them. As such the historical tour is small, a marvellous old church and a stroll down the boulevard. It was here we took control of our internets.

Well not quite, but be prepared for a boring aside about how the internet works in Cuba. There seem to be two ways to access the internet here. The first is by going to special internet cafes where you pay by time used. We haven’t had to use these yet, but they certainly don’t seem restricted in terms of social media access and the like. The other way, which is how we’ve been doing it, is through buying internet access cards. These also need wifi, so when a person has wifi access, a window will pop up, and you type in the number on the card and the password (this is scratched off, so every card wins some internet time). These cards can either give 1 or 5 hours, and also can only be bought in the special internet cafes. They are cheap, but trying to buy many gets funny looks (it took some fast talking but we managed to get 10 x 1 hour cards between the three of us). In theory it is possible to log out and save the time remaining, but that hasn’t worked for us yet. But we now have 10 cards.

I also took the opportunity to try the local coffee, cafe mambi, which is quite strong, served hot, and you then add honey. Beberli was a little reluctant, having tried and not liked once before, but once he told us about this I had no choice but to have some. And it certainly wasn’t the worst coffee I’ve ever had, while possibly with a hint of bitterness from the temperature it had decent flavour and with honey was a good pick-me-up.

We then had lunch at a restaurant that catered for locals and touristas (locals get 25% off). Presentation wise, it was possibly modern Cuban, less rustic but with traditional flavours. I had some excellent plago, a flaky white fish, with a mango salsa and the obligatory arroz y frijoles. Followed by more cafe mambi, which again didn’t kill me.

Then it was back on the road, the three or so hours to Camaguey. Players of Sid Meier’s Pirates would know this city as Port Principe, and while it used to have a port, it was a river port as it’s an inland city.

We arrived during an awesome thunderstorm, we’ve had a couple of these on this trip that might be related to a hurricane somewhere but not headed our way. But the light shows, the great crashes of thunder, and the rain to take the edge off the heat have been welcome additions to the journey.

We’ll get the history of Camaguey tomorrow, so until then we’re in suspense over how many times the town has been burnt down, or if the church bells are the originals. Instead we headed to a restaurant recommended by Beberli, El Patio, with the promise of good and cheap food. And it was indeed good and cheap, as dinner for four, including a very tall daquiri for me, lots of fish and shrimp dishes, came to 30CUC. Tonight we discovered a new favourite dish, tostones (fried plantain) stuffed with camarones and queso. So very, very good. I followed this up with the fish and shrimp, and the obligatory arroz y frijoles. I also, out of great curiosity, tried the fizzy Malta drink. It’s kind of, but not really, alcohol free beer (nor is it from Malta, it’s just a malt soft drink). Want to make your own? Get a can of a homebrew kit, possibly the Coopers Stout. Put some in a glass, top with soda water, and stir. It’s sweet, with a hint of hop bitterness, not really really bad just weird. I’m sure that many people love it.

So tomorrow it’s historic Camaguey.