The goodbyes in the morning were, as expected, really hard. We left with kisses, hugs and almost tears. But eventually we had to go and got slowly on our way to Santiago de Cuba. For the first part we went up the famous road named La Farola. The pass road was built between 1964 and 1965, in addition to the Highway Carretera Central. With La Farola, Baracoa was for the first time connected by road to the rest of the country. Before it could only be reached by ship or plane. Built from the stones of the „Sierrade Purial“, the … Continue reading →

We took a long walk to Playa Blanca. The way leads along the beach past the side of the disused baseball stadium at the edge of the town. It got built, used and never repaired. But building it literally next to the ocean also doesn’t really help to keep it in a good shape. The bridge over the river was also broken – apparently it gets washed out during big storms and then slowly repaired again, meaning that most of the time there is no bridge. At any rate there was a boat to take us across, though we had … Continue reading →

Today we went to Boca de Yumurí at the mouth of Río Yumurí, which is the second river next to Baracoa. But first we had to get gas. I paid with a 50 CUC note which required me showing them my passport, them writing down the serial number of the note and getting my signature. I had seen some weird rumours on the internet about how difficult it is to use 50 CUC notes (it is, after all, more than 2 months wages in a single note) but all-in-all it wasn’t too bad. I wouldn’t want to try and use … Continue reading →