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2 Janurary 2003: Colon to Santo Domingo (75 km) Today we pedaled to Santo Domingo. It was 75 km and 90 degree Farenheit most of the day. In one of the little agricultural towns Cascajal we had a 3 Peso pizza with fried veggie dogs. 2 km before Santo Domingo, the heat caught up with me. I had to rest and eat and drink and then I was ok after half an hour. I really appreciate the fellow assistance of my riders at times like this. Bruce and Margaret and Ray were great. In some ways long distance touring can sometimes be like mountain climbing. Youneed to rely on each other to help you out when you are in a 'tight spot'. We got to Santo Domingo a nice agricultural town with a beautiful church where they were singing hymns inside. They also had a flashing Christmas tree along with the manger scene of Jesus. We missed the bus to Santa Clara (rather they would not take us with our bikes) and it was getting real dark and there were no hotels or Casa Particulares (private houses) in Santo Domingo. We thought oh my God, what do we do now? Pedal in the dark to Santa Clara? Organize a truck to drive us? Miraculously in 5 minutes (as it always happens in Cuba) an unofficial Casa Particular was created by a family across the street from the Dollar Store ( where they sell supplies only in dollars, like a microscopic Sears that has everything). This family gave us 2 rooms in there house and doubled up sister and mother in one bed, so we could have a place. They were very kind and saved our life. They had a friend across the street who gave us an incredible dinner and breakfast and allowed us to take showers there. They had a really luxurious bathroom with hot water and flushing toilets and even offered us deodorant if we wanted. ( I declined the deodorant, but loved the shower). The wife who cooked incredibly for us laying out the food like you would see displayed in a fancy restaurant, was a teacher in grades four through twelve of Microsoft Computer Software. Children were taught Word, and Excel beginning at age 9. She also taught Visual Basic. The software comes from MS in Spain. We loved both this family and the one where we slept overnight. They were such warm people. As soon as we (ok really just me) got up at 6:30 AM they woke up the family who cooked for us and had breakfast ready in 10 minutes. The breakfast was huge, but we ate it all. We had fresh eggs too and tomatoes!
