We took the same road back to Santiago de Cuba
going over the mountains and via Guantanamo. The same scenery was completely different with low cloud hanging over the peaks giving the area a mysterious and moody beauty. As we left the high ground behind the weather slowly improved. Yolanda had rung a family member in Santiago who had rung a friend who had rung another friend and our room was, again, booked for us; we just had to find the address given!The usual nightmare ensued on entering the city but this time we were really not too far off finding our way; that is until a road we needed to take was closed. Several people told us we couldn’t drive down there at this time of day and a young guy asked us where we wanted to go. Showing him the address he offered to take us there at a cost of $2 cuc. We did ‘um and ah’ about it briefly as the guide book had warned against accepting such offers but with the price acceptable I talked Paul into hiring the ‘guide’. Paul is convinced he took us ‘the long way’, but finally, we arrived. As we pulled up he commenced his pitch; this casa was no longer taking guests and he had a friend who had a good casa where we could park the car safely for only $20 cuc for the night bla bla bla. I gave him his $2 cuc and said that we had a reservation. He was very persistent saying he would remain there until we came out - as he was right and we were wrong! When we rang the bell and went into the building the owner told us we had the wrong road, we showed him our piece of paper and he told us that Santa Rita was one road over, pointing in the direction. We were not sure if the car would be there when we came back out; luckily both she and her wheels were intact. Straight away, he was on us again, pushing the Casa he wanted to take us to and when we told him he had the wrong road, he looked poitively hurt and immediately defended himself saying ‘this was his city, he lived here, he knew this was the right road’. ‘This is not Santa Rita’ we reiterated ‘yes it is’ he argued then a very nice resident who happened to come out of her door at that point agreed, ‘no this is not Santa Rita’ and she pointed in the same direction that we now knew it to be. Finally defeated he left us alone. We thanked the lady with a ‘muchos gracias’ and found our way around the one way system to the address we were looking for.
Much to our dismay neither the young woman who answered the door nor her father knew of our booking. Thankfully, the father offered us a cup of coffee and asked us to wait for his wife; looking around we were a little disappointed as this looked like a
well maintained house. When the wife eventually turned up she took us a little further down the road to her neighbour and we had a bed for the night, at the usual rate of $25cuc and someone to keep watch over the car for only $2 cuc a night!
We arranged to have dinner at 9pm, freshened up and went out to explore the immediate area. The first place we visited was the ‘Cubatur’ office to establish if(and where) we could renew our visa's in this city and where we should return the car to; part of our car rental agreement was that the car could be left in Santiago. She was helpful; in a very laid back sort of way, and with our questions answered we went over to the Grand Hotel to enjoy a mojito and make plans for our visit.
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