Sunday  24th April

 

Today we went to Holguin,driven again by Victor and his lime green Lada. Holguin is the fourth largest city in Cuba.  It is huge sprawling place with narrow one way streets, museums, and large squares. The taxis are either tricycles or horse drawn, and there was the  usual collection of ancient cars.  Ian and Chris had a field day trying to decide what era the cars had come from and photographing them. 

 

As we found an ATM we took some more money out as we have run out of Euros to exchange.  The exchange rate is 1 CUC$ = 1 US$ with about 1.4 $ to the pound.  Pesos are worth much less – 1 CUC$ = 25 pesos.

 

We visited a provincial museum, with factory in the Czech Republic, but returned to Cuba when his Czech wife left him.  In another square there is a large mural depicting the history of Cuba from the time of Christopher Columbus up to Fidel Castartifacts from the surrounding area.  Fidel Castro comes from this part of Cuba, so a few items associated with him.  We then visited a small art gallery, where the curator explained that he used to work in the Skoda ro.  This was pointed out to us by a man who said he was a professor of English and German. 

 

Overlooking the city is a large cross which can be reached either by climbing 465 steps, or the easier option, by Victor driving us there.  It was erected in 1790 in the hope of relieving a drought.  The guide book didn’t say whether it was successful or not.

 

Lunch was now calling, so Victor took us to a restaurant in one of the back streets, called 1910.  According to the guide book there are many restaurants in Holguin named after dates and this is one of the better ones.  We certainly had a very enjoyable lunch washed down with some nice red wine.

 

After this we returned to the marina to sleep of the effects of a good lunch....