You gotta be tough if you’re gonna be dumb

I had been in Havana for 12 days straight. This was extremely disappointing because Havana is officially one of my least favorite cities in the world. It’s dirty, it’s smelly, everything is broken and as a tourist you’re constantly being hounded. There are nice things in Havana but they are mostly off-limits to Cubans, strictly for tourists only. And I find that lack of freedom and liberty amazingly sad. Of course there are some things about Havana that I'm really enjoying, and that explains why I hadn’t as of yet managed to escape the city.

Before I came here Joost and I traded e-mails with the idea of doing a little traveling in Cuba and exploring this island. Everyone needs a plan B you know. My priority, like always was finding a beach and doing some snorkeling. Joost is from Holland or the Netherlands, I forget which but I think they might be the same place, go figure. And apparently they bike a lot in Holland or the Netherlands or where ever.

So as we were talking about heading to Varadero, the most touristy resort in all of Cuba, Joost suggested biking there. Varadero didn’t really appeal that much too me, mostly because I’ve decided I hate tourist and hate acknowledging that I am one, but Joost is a ceritified dive master and assured me that Varardero is world famous for it’s diving and I would love it. Varadero is also something like a 140 kilometers from Havana and the mid-day sun in Cuba during June is deadly hot.

As we started telling our plan to people around the house they looked at us with the same look I’ve come to know and love over my 5 months of traveling…”silly gringo, what are you thinking?” After the 10th Cuban we told this lovely idea to told us we were nuts I decided I really really liked this plan and I think Joost started having second thoughts.

We changed things up a bit and decided instead of taking two days to head to Varadero we’d only go half the distance (about 65 kms) to Playa Jibacoa and wait an extra day. Sunday night we got a group together and closed down a salsa club. Fun was had by all. Monday night the Irish girls wanted to go out again, and I said I was going to bed early. Joost decided he would go out for just a little bit and we were meeting up bright and early in the morning to head out on our journey. I understood, it's awfully hard to say no to Irish girls.

Before I took off Yanet asked me if I was sure I was going to do this. I’ve noticed that every time in my life that I’ve done something stupid that’s gotten me into trouble there was always a moment where a little voice inside of my head said “are you sure?” It’s usually not external but I wondered if this was an exception. Regardless I headed to the casa for breakfast and found out that Joost hadn’t woken up yet. Then I ran into Xiomara who told me they were out till 6 in the morning partying the night before. I warned him was going to happen.

I woke Joost up and waited for him to tell me the words I was expecting, “dude, I’m sorry but I’m gonna bail” I know if I was in the same situation that’s what I would be saying. But I must say, Joost is a trooper. He looked like death and wasn’t anywhere close to being ready, but he said give him 5 minutes and he’d be game. 5 minutes turned into almost an hour but Joost was not going to drop. He let me know that if I wanted to cancel plans he wouldn’t be offended. But I had no sympathy for the devil and we were heading to Playa Jibacoa today.

We eventually managed to rent our bikes which turned out to be in a woeful state of disrepair. Such is life in Cuba. As we headed to our first destination, the ciclobus stop which we needed to take to get around Havana Bay we saw our bus pull out. Joost and I looked at each other and decided we could still catch it and we took off, fast. I don’t know exactly what happened next but I saw Joost go down, hard, in the middle of Havana traffic. I will say this for him, he got up real fast but the bailing wire and duct tape that was holding together his bike needed some attention so we forgot about taking the bus. Instead we headed for the ferry terminal.

After getting off the ferry we learned why everyone told us to take the bus. It turned out our journey was going to start by climbing a series of hills for the next 5 kms go get ourselves up to Via Blanca, and the bus avoids all of this. Such is life and we troopered on gallantly, every Cuban we talked to pointed us in a different direction but somehow we found our path.

The ride to Jibacoa was damned hard. Harder than Mount Aconcagua, harder than Machu Piccu. It the middle of the day and ridiculously hot. Something was obviously lost in the translation that told me the trip was “mostly flat” because we just saw slopping hills the entire way. We stopped plenty of times to re-hydrate and ask ourselves who came up with this brilliant idea. We tossed the idea of stopping around but neither one of us was going to be the guy that bowed out first.

I started out feeling great but ran out of gas as the day wore on. Joost started out really slow recovering from his hang-over but by the end of the day I could barely keep up with him. I guess he was right about the Dutch and their biking skills, although I always caught up to him on the hills. I guess you never go up much when you’re country is mostly under water.

Both are bikes were barely holding together but we actually had to make 3 seperate repair stops for Joost's winner of a bike. The bolt that held the baggage carrier in place got lost along the journey somewhere and we almost decided to quit right there and then. But we decided to stop by a nearby farm and ask for help and it's true, Cubans are lovely people. Not only did they find us a bolt that fit but they gave us cold water and refused any offer of payment.

As we passed by a beautiful beach with corals right off the shore. Joost looked at me and said how about a dip? I said let’s wait for the next one. We spent the next 30 kms riding past ugly refineries spewing out smoke. And then at about 8:30 PM we pulled into Jibocoa Playa. I thought about the nice lady at the bike store and how she told us not to ride our bikes on the sand and I sailed on off the road and dumped my bike on the beach as we watched the sun dip down.

I still have no idea why we went on this ridiculous trip, the bus takes an hour and costs $0.40. But sometimes it’s about the journey and not the destination. And it felt damned good to be able to say we were able to do this, when everyone told us it was a crazy idea. Go ahead, tell me what else I can’t do and watch as I prove you wrong.