Traveling from Vinales to Bay of Pigs to Cienfuegos

Our destination today is Cienfuegos, which literally means "one hundred fires."  It is nicknamed La Perla del Sur (Pearl of the South).  But first we need to get gas for our van.  This is where the reality of the socialist government sets in.  Not everyone can freely drive up to a gas station to buy gas.  Everyone is rationed with a certain amount of gas, depending on your livelihood and business.  You can wait for 5 minutes to 3 hours, we were told.

Our driver, Giovanni, dropped us off at the Havana Golf Club, where there is a lounge for us to hangout.  We met a group of travelers from Road Scholar also waiting there.  There were 23 of them in the group.  The golf club has seen better days.  Although it's a beautiful course no one was playing that day.  Probably no one can afford it.  After a while the driver called our guide to tell us that the card reader at the gas station is not working so he has to go to another station.  We waited and waited.  Our friends from Hawaii even had time to swim and laid out by the nearby pool.  The rest of us just drank coffee or sit around to chat.

Waiting at the golf course, but not to play golf

Finally, after 3 1/2 hours, the driver came back.  We were hungry.  We stopped at a roadside stand in Las Palmas for their well-known Cuban sandwich.

Cuban sandwich

Menu

Las Palmas restaurant

Since we waited so long for gas we didn't have much time at the Bay of Pigs.  If this name rings a bell it's because it was the site of the Bay of Pigs Invasion.  A group of Cuban exiles, with the help of the US government, tried to retake Cuba but failed badly.  That's why it's sometimes called the Bay of Pigs Fiasco.  We were supposed to go snorkeling there but the shops were all closed.  We got there in time to take some beautiful pictures of the sunset.

Sunset at the Bay of Pigs

We finally arrived in Cienfuegos as it was getting dark.  We were into two houses, a couple of blocks apart.  We sat down to have dinner cooked by the host of the AirBnB.  Luckily, there was electricity when we had dinner.  But after we checked into our hotel the electricity went out.  The wifi was limited and very slow.  

Dinner in Cienfuegos

Our host and building where we stayed

I am glad we spent only 1 night here.  It's a very small town and we are to walk around the town square in the morning.