That night at Playa Giron, we were scattered among several private homes.  As we talked about the Bay of Pigs battle with Pedro.  I learned that President Kennedy was very uneasy with the CIA-sponsored idea.  He denied promised air support to the invading Cuban expatriates as they tried to establish a beachhead.  Pedro said that it wouldn’t have mattered what our military did.  Most Cubans would have fought for their island, out of nationalism and for the safety of their families if nothing else.  “Maybe we would lose, but many Americans would have died and an occupation would have been a nightmare for them.”  He believed that even today, a U.S. invasion would be fought ferociously.   I felt fortunate that although our governments have been at war for 40 years, as individuals we could calmly discuss politics like good neighbors.

A rooster and the pigs rousted us early the next morning.  We had a pleasant breakfast and chat with our host.  She owns a private apartment and rents a room to travelers.  She had a large framed picture of Che in her living room.  We asked her what Che meant for her.  She said he was a valiant man, a foreigner who came to fight for the liberty of her homeland.  Her house, like the other private homes we stayed in, had national hostel symbols on the door, and were private businesses.  She told us she was taxed by the State, paying $260 dollars a month.  It didn’t seem like a profitable venture, but one learns when it is best not to ask more questions. 

At the Playa Giron (Bay of Pigs) museum we spent an hour seeing this event from the Cuban government’s perspective.  We carefully went over a mapped chronology of the troop movements during the several days of battle.  A lot of space at the museum was spent describing CIA sponsored air attacks leading up to the invasion (or `La Victoria’).  They bombed airfields, strafed air defenses right in Havana, and Cuban expatriate operatives torched a department store in the capital.  Here, for the first time in Cuban history, an attempt at foreign sponsored intervention was turned back.  One thing that was repeated several times in the Museum’s exhibit was that the mostly Cuban expatriate - mercenary attack force, when captured, claimed to be “cocineros”, chefs.  The Cuban government played that transparent fiction for all it was worth. 

We left the swamp and rode into sugarcane country.  Flat, with fields on either side of us, and we rode in small groups strung out along the highway.  Passing through a couple of small farming towns, we made a lot of heads turn.

We stopped for lunch at a small roadside dollar cafe where the overwhelmed family served many ravenous cyclists beans and rice, and made small pizzas as fast as they could.  After lunch we crossed another sizable swamp that appeared connected to marine waters.  The road fill ran right through it, preventing water circulation.  Half the swamp was slowly being destroyed.  Back in sugarcane fields again.  A harvester made a turn just as we past and shot sugarcane leaves and debris across the road, just about hitting us.  We passed two men in horse-drawn cart stopped at a bridge.  Caught in a stiff headwind, we heard the clip-clop of hooves behind us.  Soon, they passed us, waving and enjoying the sport.  They turned off the road a little ways up.

We arrived in the town of Rodas.  A group of young boys stared.  We began talking to them.  Two of them had baseball gloves.  Who is your favorite player?, We asked.  “German Mesa”, was the quick reply.  It was the second time I had heard that name.  Apparently a shortstop, and I never found out which team he played for.  Eventually one 10-year old boy asks me where I am from.  When I told him, a few more friends come up to join the group.  I hear them mutter, “los Estados Unidos”, “donde? (where) “los Estados Unidos.”  They confer in a circle.  Soon, their spokesman, the admirer of German Mesa, has a question.  “Is the United States pretty?”  I thought hard for a minute.  Then I answered “Yes, it’s very pretty ...well, like Cuba is.”  “But it’s not a paradise” I added (just in case they had heard that it was).

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