Vinales

We rode from Soroa to San Cristabel which was about 60 km before we stopped at a hotel for lunch. Lovely cool place, good lunch and cold beer  before we jumped in the bus for a transfer to Vinales. The road we were on was very rough and very potholed so it was an active concentration to avoid veering off and falling over. Funnily enough I quite enjoyed the ride and was disappointed when we arrived at our stopping place for the day.

It was Saturday and everybody was out and about doing their shopping hanging out together young people in particular and of course the farm labourers were continuing to labour.

We were deposited at various casa particulares around the town. It was dark when we arrived to our place was very basic run by an old woman and her family. We had to ask for the generator to be kicked in,  in order to have a hot shower.

We walked to a very noisy restaurant for dinner which serve served absolutely excellent food. However, the wine was a bit costly at $44 US. Always good for alcohol consumption to have it limited by cost.

At the 40 km mark the bus pulled up and there was Pauline sitting next to our driver Joel. She had fallen off when waving to some children. I went with her on the bus to a hospital where she was given a painkiller and not much else because the hospital was in an appalling stage regarding everything that you would normally expect to find in a hospital. The absolutely filthy toilets had no running water there of course was no x-ray machine for Pauline to be examined and so we drove back to where the others were at the beach and joined them for lunch. The plan was to take Pauline to another hospital when we return to Vinales.

The next morning we set off to ride 60 km to a beautiful beach. The first 10 k’s was absolutely stunning as we rode through beautiful forest on gently up and down rises. The next 10 km was okay, but after that there were potholes the size of meteor craters everywhere on the road. It was an absolute effort of concentration and riding along that no more than about 10 km an hour.

Note the doctor's chair and notebook! At least she had a stethoscope and a blood pressure machine

We swam at the beach, but that was marred as well as Maureen was stung by a jellyfish. We were served huge pieces of fish and lobster, but I had certainly lost my appetite.

Back to Venus and Maureen took over the care of Pauline. They did not arrive back to our casa until 11:30 pm after visiting two hospitals, the last of which had an x-ray machine and confirmed a hairline fracture.

It was a strange way to finish what could’ve been a beautiful day.