We arrive at the Havana Viazul bus terminal at 8:30am for the 9:30am departure to Santa Clara on the Havana - Santiago route. We check in, receive our boarding passes and settle in for the wait. A bit before 9am a bus departure is called; we're not sure this is our bus so do not join the queue. Almost everyone else crowds the terminal door to RUSH the bus. I take this opportunity to go to the ladies room again (my system is rather upset). Turns out this is our bus. Jerry shouts into the ladies that we need to board NOW. I quickly finish and head toward the door. The baggage man and ticket takers are hurrying us along. The clock says 9:08. I'm not worried as we have assigned seats, 9 A/B.

I board the bus to see our seats are taken. I check the boarding pass again and sure enough someone is settled in our seats and they show absolutely no inclination to move. An older woman seated a few rows down shouts at me in Spanish that it's first-come-first-serve seating; take any open one. The first 2-seat pair is at the back of the bus, 37 A/B, near the one restroom, which is locked. Clock says 9:10. At 9:15 one of the two drivers takes a head-count. We sit some more. Another head-count at 9:20 even though no one else has boarded the bus. We're finally underway at 9:26am. Four hours to Santa Clara.

Not far from the city the highway is shared with people walking and on bicycles, men on horses, horse-drawn carts, cars, buses, transport vehicles. Unlike many LatAm countries, very few motorcycles. Scenery is primarily manual labor agricultural -oxen-drawn plows, men hoes and machetes - and cattle, horse, sheep & goat grazing lands. The paved roads, whether the main highway, main road or secondary road, are pretty much the same: a swaying bumpy ride making reading and writing all but impossible. This holds true for the entire journey.


I'm looking forward to Santa Clara as I reserved the very best casa particulare in town, Hostel Florida Center, which is also the very best restaurant in town (as listed in Footprint Travel Dream Trip Cuba guide and the casas particulates reservation website). The casa ia a delightfully restored colonial house dating from 1876, the first ever private house to win the architectural conservation prize in 2008, located a few blocks from the central plaza. The restaurant is in the lush courtyard garden with orchids, calla lilies and caged songbirds. The room and meals will cost a bit more than the others on our itinerary but it's just one night. A treat to begin our journey eastward.


Disappointingly, our one day delay costs us that casa particulare room, however we still have the dinner reservation. We're settled into a nearby casa particulare, La Casa Colonial, at the typical cost of 25 CUC for the night. Clean, spacious room on the first floor of the home of a retired couple. Comfortable beds. Breakfast at 5 CUC / pp turns out to be the very best of all of the casa breakfast offerings and artfully presented. Extra touches were cookies for our coffee / tea, an especially attractive fruit plate, the small ham / cheese sandwich is warm and on a brioche-like bun, fresh warm rolls with cold butter in addition to the usual small egg plate and freshly make fruit juice.

Dinner at Florida Center: delightful atmosphere; small tables in a lush courtyard garden with orchids, calla lilies and caged songbirds, live music. Perfectly prepared fish & quite a large portion for me, Jerry enjoys their ropa viejo, highly spiced & garlicky. A salad of greens, radish, tomato, cucumber, shredded carrot, cabbage & green beans, and 1/2 of a grapefruit rounds out the meal. With a local drink and tip, our tab is 26 CUC. On the expensive side yet the best dinner we've had in Cuba so far.

Lovely dinner and tomorrow's breakfast aside, our timing for Santa Clara is terrible. Had we arrived on Saturday as planned we could have seen the sites, including Teatro La Caridad (built 1884-1885, restored yet still contains more original features than any other theatre in Cuba including some furniture, mirrors, paintings, and the original stage machinery, possibly the only machinery of this period still in use anywhere in the world) and Casa de la ACAA (artists & artisans). If we'd been there during the week, a trip to the Fabrica de Tabacos certainly would have been on our itinerary. As it was, it's Sunday late afternoon and everything is closed. We make the best of it and sit at a bar across the street from the central plaza, enjoying a beer and watching the local scene. One amusing sight is the goat-drawn mini-carts filled with young humans dressed in their Sunday best going round and round the family-packed central plaza; the young goat one is a total kid ride :-)

In the photo you can see five buildings, these are located on one side of the central plaza. Two colonial buildings have been restored, and the middle one is under restoration and the one closest to the green building has yet to undergo restoration. The big green ugly one is a hotel, the one eyesore of this pleasant historic plaza.

After dinner, we walk back to the plaza to listen to the Santa Clara Municipal Band play for an hour in the plaza bandstand. They're quite good, making for a pleasant evening and this stop somewhat restored.