There was great excitement this morning as we all got ready for our first day of cycling...
We dressed in all our cycling gear, got our day bags ready, took our luggage to the bus, parked our bikes and headed in for a hearty breakfast...
Then it was time to get our water; find our bikes; say hello to Professor Winston (poor man had only had 2 hours sleep but was up and raring to go with us at the crack of dawn); listen to Claude's last minute briefing and...
... then we were off...
Ha ha ha - today was VERY hot. Someone said it was 42 degrees today so you can imagine how hot we were on our bikes!!!
The first part wasn't too bad as we were going along the coast and there were quite a few trees and large shrubs to take the edge of of the sun. However, when we hit 11:00am all the shade vanished and it was just us and that big ol' ball of fire in the sky.
The scenery was breathtaking today - really stunning. The terrain was not as good. We were off road for most of today's ride and there were alot of loose stones and coral that not only made it a very bumpy ride it also tended to knock out the back wheels a bit. Not fun at the best of times and probably worse for Val whose accident is still very fresh in her mind.
All that bumping about coupled with our lowered handlebars meant that many of us had numb fingers. hands and feet but it was great fun!
The first part of the ride seemed to take ages and we soon learned that we'd actually missed our first water stop and it was time for water and snacks (not sure what happened there but it was good as we'd already pretty much completed half of the day's ride without realising it)...
Several times along the way we were passed by trucks full of young children all waving and calling out "hola". It turned out they were on their way to perform in a mini carnival so we had some unscheduled entertainment over lunch...
After lunch, we headed off on the next part of our ride. It wasn't what we were expecting at all!!! I've already mentioned the incredible heat so to have a long stretch of road almost impassable due to loads of HUGE muddy puddles was a bit of a surprise...
On second thoughts, it's not that strange - we were just entering the swamps... and, the country had been pummelled by some serious hurricanes (the last of which hit a week ago) so a few puddles were not really a problem.
Claude (our leader) told us to be careful and not to cycle through them as there was no way of telling how deep they were. We were good to begin with but somewhere along the line, someone (Fern, I think) took a chance and cycled through one of the puddles and then we all got braver and we had varying degrees of success in our attempts.
I think most people ended up with very muddy and wet feet - I know I did!!!
The scenery today was just beautiful - the pics just can't do it justice, it was breathtaking!
Finally, we got to a decent stretch of road and Val was on a roll, bombing along but I was struggling as I was seriously overheating and there was no shade anywhere!!!
After a while, we saw some coaches up ahead and I got really excited thinking it was a stop but it wasn't - the coaches were for a local school but, thankfully a group of our fellow cyclists had thought the same as we did and had decided to stop under a large tree anyway.
The break was just what the doctor ordered - I felt much better having poured some water on my head and on the back of my knees (thanks Briony) and we were off again...
The end of the ride was most welcome - we were all muddy and VERY sweaty but it was great!!!
We left our bikes behind and boarded our coaches for the transfer to our next rather colourful hotel stopping briefly en route, to take some pics in Cienfugos.
We were greeted by more happy dancing girls and mojitos at our new hotel. Val couldn't resist the urge to join them in a bit of salsa (she may have been mucky and sweaty but she had plenty of rhythm)...
This evening's briefing was a little different as Professor Winston took to the floor, thanking us for our contribution and telling us how the funds would be used. He was really engaing and we felt really prouder than ever to be part of the whole event.
Apparently tomorrow is going to be our longest cycling day - hope it's not as hot!!!
