My jet lag has definitely set back in and I can’t seem to shake it! Which means I am waking up at about 5 am each day. Today it was good though because it gave me the chance to walk to the bus station and watch the sun rise instead of catching a taxi.
The bus ride to Baracoa took about 5 hours and went through some pretty amazing Jungle scenery through the mountains. We arrived into Baracoa around 1 and the station was full of Cubans holding signs advertising their Casa Particulars, as soon as we stepped off the bus we were swarmed and being shouted at in every direction. Luckily I had book a Casa particular ahead and could see a bicycle taxi driver holding a sign with my name scrawled across it.
He took me to my Casa Particular owned by Adrian who works at the local Television station. I set about getting my bearings in the tiny city. Baracoa is a long narrow city, only a few blocks wide, with the ocean on one side and a thick jungle on the other. It only takes about 20 minutes to walk from one end to the other.
In Santiago De Cuba it is impossible to escape the people who are always trying to figure out ways to get money from you, weather it be selling you some rum or cigars, or chatting for a while then eventually asking for some money for their Son/Daughter/Father/Brothers birthday present. Its always someones Birthday in Cuba. If you want to just have a quiet beer by yourself it won’t last long, someone will approach you with good intentions just to chat, or try and make you buy their friendship. It gets really exhausting dealing with these people all the time, there seems to be no such thing as alone time in Cuba.
I hoped that by coming to Baracoa I would be able to escape all this, recharge for a few days and explore the beach, jungles and mountains in relative peace. But after taking a walk around the city I could tell that there was going to be no escape here either. I was constantly stopped by people wanting to “just talk” then after a few minutes showing me their hand crafted cedar cigar box, paintings, or Casa particulars.
Other than that I took a walk along the beach, watched a baseball game at the beachside stadium, checked out a shipwreck and had a good chat with a German dude, who is the first Non-Cuban I have actually talked to in a week. It was so nice to have a conversation without trying to figure out if the person you are talking to is actually trying to milk you for coin.
