Dear Friends,
I have been out of touch for about week. The date posted for this should have been 13 Feb. but not sure how to change that in the title. From
Holquin, the provincial capital I biked north the
Gibara. I had not been able to contact Ramon Gonzalez before hand although I had been in touch with him by email before leaving the States.
Gibara is a small town on the coast. When I rode in two men who had a place for me to stay if I wanted it helped me find Ramon. As it turns out Ramon and the
Iglesia de los Amigos is well known. I received a very gracious welcome from he and his wife Rosario and her mother Lily and stayed with them a week. By the time I left I felt like one of the family. I was also still recovering from a cold and needed more rest and down time.
I came with a tourist visa and not a religious one. With the latter one is able to stay in the homes of those in the church without receiving a fine for doing so. Some allowance was made for my circumstances and what I was doing so I was able to stay with Ramon and his family.
Ramon is a very busy guy wearing many hats, pastor of the Friends Church in
Gibara, Director of the Peace Institute and clerk, I believe of their annual meeting and several others that my Spanish was not up to translating. In short a lot of demands on his time in addition to helping me try to sort out the visa.
In the end I will extend the tourist visa I have when the time comes. Friends in
Holquin were very kind to helped me with that also.
Yesterday I left
Gibara about 0800 and made it to Banes around 1830. I took a break near
Guadlavaca during the heat of the day and continued on later in the afternoon over the hills. The sun is quite intense at mid-day and guess the temps. are close to 90 F.
I may stay here another day and leave Saturday morning.
Candido is the young pastor in the Friends Church here.
Heredio, the retired pastor of the church, is also living here for now but will be moving soon to a house in
Gibara. It is a real blessing to be so warmly welcomed where ever I have stopped for a time.
That's about it in brief for now. From here I will continue east toward Moa, and Baracoa then Santiago and west along the south coast. I'm told Santiago is hotter than here.
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