Bicitaxi Tour

Once again the Casa turned up trumps with a great breakfast, enough to keep us going all day. We were to go on a "bicitaxi" tour at 9 o'clock and were sharing an English speaking guide with a Dutch couple. This tour far exceeded our expectations, with first a visit to an artist who was not only working with local women incorporating their embroidery skills into her art but who did art therapy with children with problems. She is internationally known and we decided to google her when we had easy Internet access. We saw the station, which is still in use for tourist trains, and heard about the importance of sugar cane and the slave trade in the past. However many of the trains are gradually falling into disrepair so no longer running. Our next stop was to the Black Market which everyone knows about but the authorities turn a blind eye to. The farmer's market is legal but has to be outside the town. It was by a couple of metres. We not only admired the fruit and vegetables but the length of the nails of the farm ladies!

A visit to the cigar factory is mandatory but fascinating to watch them at work. We also visited a local bar, much smaller than those used by the tourists and much cheaper, and lastly the community shops where people can buy their monthly rations at very low prices and also a few things which are not rationed?

We learned so much on our tour and enjoyed a coffee and cake before setting off to find out about our tour tomorrow. We also wanted to change more money before the weekend. That was interesting as the first time Visa was "not working". The advice was to try again in an hour. Luckily the second time it was OK. As in Santa Clara only one bank deals with credit cards.

Being solvent once more we decided that half a day at the beach would be good so took a "cocotaxi" to the beach at Playa Ancon, a couple of hours soaking up the sun, including being denied access to a bar because we weren't hotel guests, and a return journey in an ancient Chevrolet taxi. 12 km each way cost a total of $14. The drive was very flat and we passed marshes full of birds like egret and small wading birds.

Our attempts to use the Internet were thwarted by very slow technology. We read our e-mails OK but BBC news took so long to load that we had to give up.

Once again the Casa tried to fatten us up with a 3/4/5 course meal. A mountain excursion tomorrow might help to walk it all off.