Hopping Across The Northern Coast

From the most easterly part of' Cuba it was time to turn around and make my way back to Havana - no real hurry though and after the trauma of the Cuban Visa Crisis it was time to put my feet up - so I headed to Guardalavaca - Guard The Cow beach - named because when the Europeans arrived in the 1500s the native Indians The Taino needed to keep an eye on their livestock! The Europeans are here again but this time confined to the all inclusives - a few Casas have opened up in the village and I stayed there The beaches were gorgeous with some especially good snorkelling at Playa Esmerelda - but after 4 days my feet became iitchy again and I headed along the coast to a little fishing village called Gibara I arrived there on a Sunday - it was the definition of sleepy - deserted streets - just the wind blowing hard in from the Florida Straits It wasn't long before I bumped into some locals "De donde? Where you from?" is the standard greeting - followed by a whispered " Cigars? " These hustlers are called Jineteros literally jockeys - they "hop" onto a tourist and only get off when they have their fill of convertibles! But they are pretty harmless and don't really mind if you give them the brush off


Gibara remained sleepy and very windy the next day so I decided to move on up the. coast to town called Moron - I really felt at home there:-) As well as having some nice colonial buildings it is pretty close to the northern keys - Cayo Coco and Cayo Guiellerma - a good chance to go diving I hadn't been for 4 years so it was good to get back in the water The keys are again the home of all inclusives - its quite a strange dynamic - watching the Europeans and Canadians relaxing in the lap of luxury while the Cubano hotel workers are bussed in and out in old Russian trucks However as I said before its good for the economy and provides a lot of work but personally I would rather spend my money with the locals that give it to a hotel - plus I find it difficult to understand why people come to Cuba and don't see Cuba - es loco!

Back on the mainland I found out that there was a mini cultural festival going on and the star attraction that evening was Andy Velasquez - described on the poster as El Mango del Humour - The Mango of Comedy At 60p a ticket that was not to be resisted and though I didn't get any of his jokes (a lot was lost in translation) it was great to see Cubans at play

The next arrived and my plan was to move to Remedios another couple of hours towards Havana - but of course you remember from my previous posts about nothing ever going to plan in Cuba... I had read about the bus company Viazul opening a new route from Moron to Remedios - ideal! 2 places I wanted to go - a 2 hour bus trip down the new motorway! Too good to true - of course it was- 3 buses and a taxi later (and of course much waiting asking and pointing) I arrived in Remedios just 5 hours later than planned! Of course the new route had never existed in the first place - once again thanks for nothing Lonely Planet!

However once I got there my luck changed and I found a really lovely casa with very nice hosts - Remedios is famous for Parrandas - a festival on Dec 24 where the down divides itself into 2 barrios - San Salvador and Carmen - huge floats and static displays are created - the scaffolding for the latter was being welded together during my stay - what I didn't know was that this weekend 14-15 they were having a mini warm up Parranda- mostly taking place on Sunday - the barrios paraded their emblems through the streets ending up in the main square where Artilleros, the fireworks experts, set off hundreds of eardrum-popping firecrackers until the square was shrouded in an acrid pall of black smoke The artilleros are completely loco - they light rockets with the end on their cigars and let them fly off from their hands - occasionally one drops and goes fizzing into the crowd scattering locals - I'm not sure any of the Artilleros has read the Firework Code!!

They also have huge metal cannisters a bit like a mortar - they dump large bags of gunpowder in the cannisters and light the taper with their cigars - they move about 6 feet back and there is a huge bang and the contents fly into the sky - this went on for about an hour then every got on with the business of eating a drinking - lots of spit roasted pigs churros and ice cream!

I headed back to the casa and turned in - only to be woken at 2am by more fireworks - which went on for 2 hours!! My casa was a good half km away from the plaza but it still sounded like they were in the street outside! Apparently on 24 Dec there are fireworks from 9pm til 6am non stop!! So that was an explosive end to my trip along the north coast - time to pack up and head back to La Habana for a few days....