Cubans see tourists in two ways: they can be a link to an outside world that otherwise remains largely closed to them. Or a "dollar on two legs" who is happy to buy you a beer or sell you rum or cigars. Or sex. Yula sees and seeks only one thing: she is eager to find out more - "Where are you from?" "Where do you live?" "Is it cold in Germany now?" The twenty-year-old racing cyclist has lots of questions.
Yula, whose full name is Yusleidy Machín Segreo, is at the door on time to cycle from Holguin, the fourth largest city in Cuba, to Guardalavaca beach, 60 kilometres away. On her favourite route, which crosses the foothills of the Grupo de Maniabón mountain range on the best asphalt with constant ups and downs. Past pastures, fields and orchards, where campesinos drive the harvest to their thatched wooden huts in two-horse oxcarts.
You can find these routes in the PDF download:
1. vamos a la playa
(117 kilometres, 700 metres in altitude, maximum gradient of seven percent)
Holguin - Playa Guardalavaca and back
2. overland journey
(100 kilometres, 430 metres in altitude, maximum 17 percent gradient)
Holguin - Mirador de Mayabe - back towards Holguin - San Germán - Holguin
3rd pilgrimage to El Cobre
(96 kilometres, 1,020 vertical metres, maximum gradient of six percent)
Santiago de Cuba - El Cobre - Palma Soriano - same route
back. Variant from Palma Soriano: Autopista to San Luís - Alto Songo - El Christo Santiago de Cuba
4. you can't get any higher
(126 kilometres, 1,800 vertical metres, maximum gradient 17 percent)
Santiago de Cuba - Las Guásimas - La Gran Piedra - Las Guásimas - El Verraco - Baconao - back to Santiago de Cuba
5th Vuelta Pass
(136 kilometres, 1,660 metres in altitude, maximum gradient 15 percent)
Baracoa - "La Farola" pass road - Cajobabo - Imías - return journey as outward journey
Downloads:
PDF: Cuba
