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Thursday February 15, 2018 – Viñales to Cayo Vista
We started cycling early and reach Cayo Lavisa in time for a
great lunch. They served enough to feed our entire group at least four times
over. We had lobster (delicious), two kinds of fish, rice and beans, and
innumerable salads. Unfortunately, Lisa and Jennifer were sick all day and were
unable to enjoy the day’s activities.
En route to the lunch stop, I passed a small fruit stand and
stopped to take a photo. The young woman proprietress came out and gave me a
guava, which I promptly ate. Delicious. We chatted for a while, giving me
another chance to practice my Spanish. When I asked if all the fruits were
locally grown, she took me on a brief tour of her “farm” which looked more like
an overgrown patch of brush. She showed me where several of the various fruits
were growing, including some pineapples.
After lunch we took the ferry to the island where we spent
the afternoon on the beach. The 2pm ferry left promptly at 2:32 pm. The beach
was fantastic, with very fine white sand, and the water was particularly
inviting. The return ferry at 5pm was very crowded. We boarded the bus again
for a long shuttle ride back to the hotel in Soroa where we had stayed the
previous Sunday.
Friday February 16, 2018 – Soroa to Cabaña, then shuttle to Havana
Today is the last day of cycling. We start out with the opportunity
to cycle up the back side of “the wall,” the challenging ride earlier in the
week. All but two of us decided to pass up this opportunity and instead ride
the shuttle to the top and start our ride from there. I vacillated but ended up
taking the shuttle. Mike and David did the climb, and David said that it was
actually easier than the front side.
We have a new word to describe the balance of today’s ride –
“downulating.” This made up word describes the rolling hills that we traverse
on our long descent. It was lots of fun, and I stopped to photograph a group of
fishermen pulling a net full of fish from a rather ugly looking pond – not sure
that I would want to eat those fish.
We ended the cycling in the small town of Cabaña and had a
picnic lunch in the town square. We enjoyed it, except for the presence of an
obnoxious beggar that would not take no for an answer.
After lunch, we boarded the bus for the shuttle back to
Havana. We stopped in “Fusterlandia” for sightseeing and a group photo. The
following description is from our day sheet:
Cuban artist José Fuster’s art is “naïve,” meaning
he uses childlike crude shapes and bright colors in his untrained composition.
His work has been compared to that of Picasso, a comparison that followed
him in successful gallery tours across Europe. After one such
tour, Fuster was struck with a desire to recreate something like Gaudi’s
public works in Barcelona and
Brâncuși’s across Romania in
his own homeland. He wanted to put his artistic reality into his real-world
surroundings, and he began in his own neighborhood.
In 1975, after moving into a modest wood house in the rundown
neighborhood of Jaimanitas outside Havana,
Fuster set about decorating his studio in colorful mosaic. Once he was done
there, he asked his neighbors if he could decorate their homes and business as
well. A few accepted his offer and the tile creations grew. Over the course of
a decade, doctors’ offices, bus stops, fountains, benches, gateways, and more
were enveloped by Fuster’s whimsical imagination. Today, his artwork coats
the neighborhood in a rainbow of strange, enchanting fantasy.
Jaimanitas was an economically depressed area before Fuster
arrived, and now it has turned into an artist’s paradise. Tourists are bussed
into the neighborhood to admire Fuster’s still-growing kingdom, which has
spawned a new generation of artists inspired by the surroundings they came up
in.
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| The Week 2 crew |
We
reboard the bus which takes us to the Presidente hotel. The air-conditioning in
my room is extremely loud, and they will not move me to a different room. The
only option is to turn it off and open the window. Fortunately, we are only
about two blocks from the harbor, and there is a pleasant cool breeze in the
late afternoon and evening.
Most
of us return to the restaurant of a week ago (Restaurante Paladar Decameron -- where
I had the disappointing shrimp). Tonight, I had octopus with pasta, and it was
superb. Although we are in what appears to be a good neighborhood, the restaurant
door remains locked and guests have to knock to be admitted. The day ended with
a pleasant walk back to the hotel.
