This feedback is worth consideration:
All in all Cuba is a good place to cycle. Safety seemed to be an issue
only when the big via azul busses suddenly blasted past at 65 mph.
They make very little noise an d unlike most other vehicles don't honk
as they approach so pay attention and use a mirror if possible.
Generally I found consistent 85 to 90 degrees and mid range humidity
to lead to a lack of enthusiasm for the climbier parts of Cuba, though
I usually like hills, and the one night we rode until several hours
after dark looking for a place to stay was actually pretty nice
temperature wise.. felt like I could have ridden all night. I found
the people of Cuba to be pretty great, always ready to talk even with
my half done Spanish, and the lack of materialism was a refreshing
change to the USA. Food was iffy but occasionally good, always a
surprise, a continuous search, which I grew to enjoy, I feel that
cycletouring is like the age old and perhaps happier days of hunter-
gatherer civilizations, endless hours of observation of your ever
changing environment, moderated by the fluctuations in the weather,
kept simple by the limited ability to carry only small, lightweight
essential items, tensioned (or spiced if you will) slightly by the
need for food and water and shelter at the end of day and a steady
physical presence, those pedals going round and round, making you feel
stronger each day; picture the opposite of working in a factory day
after endless day, the whole ending up as a blur: traveling on a bike
leaves you with memories of a brightly colored kind, some bad, mostly
good, all of them vivid.
http://www.bicyclingcuba.com/feedback.html
***
Cuba could be Heaven and it can be Hell. But the model can certainly
be used for any other Third World country. If I were Comandante there
I'd keep ALL SUVs from Miami out. All the tourists with bicycles would
be welcomed as well as all others that want to drop the rat race.
Definitely no lack of bananas or freedom. Banana is the necessary fuel
for riding a bike and freedom is what we need to be out of the cage --
just like the hunter gatherers-- and talk to people. Talking to people
is one reason I ride a bike and Cubans are watched when talking to
foreigners. There's no free exchange of ideas and the same applies to
the virtual world. Can you believe it they got no access to Internet
there?
Venezuela is the wrong revolution for other reasons, such as gas being
dead cheap, some 12 cents the gallon, something that would make many
Americans happy, but that we must avoid at all costs. In fact we all
know gas has to cost twice as much as in America to stimulate
alternative energy and downsize those behemoths causing mayhem out
there.