Inside the Town of Baracoa

Posted by Christopher.  Written Jan. 15, 2014.

After a lengthy night of sickening rocking, we had finally reached Baracoa. Admittedly, this was not our final destination, but a good place to stop either way.

We were surprised when the Guarda Fronterra (essentially the Cuban water border, and coast guard) said that we were allowed to actually go on land here, but we needed to leave someone on the boat. So we left Dad, who was really exhausted from the night, and brought Mom to the town, who was just a little bit less exhausted. Since we had put our Dinghy motor up on the big boat for the passage, we had Dad row us over to a landing, then row back, because there was no dock.

This is what happens after a night's passage.  I took this picture of our whole starboard hull using the "panorama" setting on our camera.  That is dad in the cabin at the back, and mom in the front.

Rowing to the dock in Baracoa.

This wreck sits right off the dock at Baracoa.

We had to climb up over these tires to get in and out of the dinghy.

Carrying our handheld radio for calling Dad back when need be, we set off to the town in search of three things: 1- somewhere where we could find good street pizza, which we found to be a recurring tasty thing in Cuba. 2- It was a BOILING hot day, so we were in search of ice cream! 3- We were looking for some good pictures in the town to put in this blog, and we found all those things in the town.

A Cuban apartment building.

First we went to go to the Pizzeria, but we soon found out it was closed until later, and we had about an hour to kill. We decided to go to the corner store to search for ice cream, and the whole time we were walking there we were taking pictures of this and that. I knew that we looked highly touristy, with our ball caps and cameras,but that look could not be helped.

Time to play spot the tourist again!

Eventually we reached the cornerstore, and mom poked her head in and asked for ice cream, in her fluent Spanish. The lady at the counter said yes, which I knew was si, and then we popped in and walked casually to the ice cream freezer. They had mounds and mounds of Vanilla Chocolate Chip flavour, and so we bought two small tubs and got four plastic spoons.

We walked around for a little while after, until we saw a nice spot in the shade, so we ate the ice cream there.

Lots of horse drawn carriages in Baracoa.

And a bici-taxi.

...or two.

After that we walked back to the Pizzeria, only to find they didn’t actually have Pizza today. Mom asked the lady in the restaurant who told us that if there’s any other places that had pizza, and she said yes. So they got someone to lead us up the street a ways up to a second floor balcony on a Casa Particular, where we could order pizza.

A Cuban pizza place.

We ordered and each got fairly big personal pizza’s, for $1 CUC each (which is the equivalent of an American dollar). they were really tasty for what you’d expect to get in Cuba, and so we ate them all up and headed back on our way.

The Malecon at Baracao.

Peeking into a Cuban church.

Checking out some market goods in Baracoa.

Finally we headed back to where Dad could pick us up, and we radioed him. He picked up the radio immediately, and soon he was underway to come get us. We climbed on the dinghy and rowed all the way back, then went and go some nice cold water and relaxed.