As I mentioned last week, we had a very brief stay, just 2 nights, in Bayamo. The only reason we stayed 2, was we had planned on doing a trek through Gran Parque Nacional Sierra Maestra to see the Cuban Revolution Headquarters. However, neither Mike nor I were feeling well and we thought it would be best to relax and work on feeling better, as we had a long day of driving the next day. We also didn’t have an exact plan for the hike and how to get to the park. It was kind of complicated, and we weren’t able to plan it ahead of time. I think I would try and get closer to the park, stay in a town closer to the La Plata entrance. At times it was very hard to plan parts of the trip due to lack of info available while in Canada, and not being able to book things ahead of time. The only thing I managed to do ahead of time was book the casa particulars, and make a rough itinerary. Everything else (and at times even the casas) had us flying by the seat of our pants.
So in Bayamo, we walked around town a bit, there wasn’t a whole lot to see. We ate in an amazing paladar (restaurant) twice, attempted to make phone calls home as we had found a pay phone, and spent most of our time on the balcony outside our room reading and playing cards. I also took the time to take photos of our unsuspecting Cuban neighbours, catching them in the real, everyday moments of their lives.
The photo above was what I was shooting through (with a max. zoom of 70mm at the time). Cuba definitely doesn’t have ‘codes’ when it comes to electrical “upgrades” or housing. Throughout the afternoon we kept hearing a loud buzzing noise, and eventually we also noticed that the wires were arcing. This made us question the safety of the wiring, and our proximity to it. Glad I got my photos before that! Hah!
Next week we are off to Baracoa. I will probably do at least 2 posts from there, as we had stayed there for 4 days, the longest we stayed in any one place.
