Arrival in Placetas

When we arrived, we were greeted with a lovely spread of fresh fruit to snack on before getting settled in at our hostess' house. We started to get to know the people traveling from San Antonio and enjoyed sharing stories of previous visits that people had made. Our hostess was a lifelong member of the church (age 85) and had a sizeable house (with 5 bedrooms and two bathrooms) that was similar to a dormitory. She has hosted people for many years and was so kind. We put up mosquito nets and had small solar lanterns with us for the evenings when the power was out. I was glad I brought earplugs because between the roosters that chose to crow throughout the night (not just at sunrise), and the occasionally barking dog in the backyard who literally slept a foot outside my open window, it was kind of hard to rest well. Our hostess had a large solar battery (hooked to an array on the roof??) that would power her TV in the evenings (She liked watching soap operas), her refrigerator, and would allow us to charge our phones. It did not have enough power to run the water pump to fill the holding tank on the roof, so we were told when we arrived that we should not try to flush the toilet or take a shower until the power came back on in the morning and the tank could be refilled.

Our host house (about 8 blocks from the church)

TV and fridge ran off the large solar battery

Managed not to get tangled up enough to rip down my mosquito netting

The dog slept right outside my window.

washing up by solar lantern at night

This patio was lovely and would be where I would park myself all day in the summer. Its in the shade of a tree and open to the breeze.

Visit to Placetas Cuba

I was excited to return to Placetas Cuba this fall to visit our sister church family there. After a 2 day visit last December, I was looking forward to meeting more people and building some deeper relationships. Our visit was scheduled for 3 full days and 2 half days, with 2 additional travel days. It is impossible to travel all the way from Wichita to Santa Clara in one day. With only one flight daily, we had to stay overnight in Miami and catch the flight on the second day. We did the same in reverse on the way home (staying overnight in Dallas). It was pretty tiring, especially since we were delayed 8 hrs on our way there (stupid government shut down with curtailed flights).

The host home that we stayed in only had power a few hours a day (mostly first thing in the morning). This affects everything: cooking meals, water pumping to the storage unit on the roof so you have running cold water, access to (already very spotty) cellular coverage, etc. Our hosts were super hospitable, but it is good to be home.

We asked what we could bring to help and were given lists of over the counter meds, and supplies for their weekly children's program. We were joined by their other partner church from San Antonio and between our two groups we brought in 10 large suitcases (50-70 lbs each) of supplies. We had to spend the night in Miami on our way there because of flight connections, so the three of us had to schlep 8 suitcase from the airport to the hotel and back.

We were in a mini bus that seats 16, but barely held the 9 of us because of all the luggage.

I didn't realize until we made the trip back to the airport in half the time how much stress we were putting on the old bus! We only had room for the craft supplies on the tables, the medicines filled 4 full large suitcases and didn't get sorted while we were there.

Sorting out all the art supplies

One of the suitcases filled with pill bottles

Inventory complete!

We arrived in the early afternoon. The flight is just 45 mins from Miami and its like entering a different world. Even though I did not make any customs declarations like I did last time, I was still one of the last ones out of the arrival hall. They randomly picked one of my bags full of medicines to spot check and had to take every single pill bottle out to look at it. We loaded on the bus and headed out from Santa Clara to Placetas (about 45 min drive). It was an overcast day which made it cooler (about 75 instead of 80). They have had trouble with chikungunya (mosquito borne disease) and we were all wearing long sleeves, so we were thankful. While they do have beautiful old US cars, they mostly have motor scooters, bikes, lots of horse carts and old Soviet era cars that are falling apart. In one picture, there are two people on the scooter in front of us, with the person in back balancing and holding on to a bookshelf.

Downtown Miami in the distance

The ocean off the coast is beautiful!

There is one gate at the Placetas airport (and only one runway that doubles as the taxiway

The bus driver has an uncovered fan on the panel above his head with metal blades, it looked like a serious menace when it was spinning!

Tricky balancing act

Day 9 - Walking the City Walls

Charlene set off to get her training run in this morning, so I decided to circumnavigate the York city walls.  There are 2 miles of surviving masonry, more than any other town in England.  The wall has surrounded the city for 700 years.  The tops of the walls were repaired and partly rebuilt about 150 years ago so the public could safely walk on them.  There are four main "bars" (fortified gateways), 2 smaller gateways, and 1 small postern gate defended by a tower.  The walls are built of limestone and set on high earthern banks or ramparts.   The older roman walls are mainly hidden in these earth works. 

This entrance was right by the train station and our hotel and was my starting point.  There was a sign nearby noting that the city was trying to use more native wildflower and fewer annuals in their flower beds for more ecological sustainability.  This wildflower bed was lovely!

This is a map of the walls around the old city.  You can see the River Ouse flows right through the middle.  There were towers on each side of the river and a chain ran between them to keep people from navigating the river if needed. 

The small tower across the river is Lendal tower.  It was a pump house for the city water supply for 200 years starting in 1631. 

A view of York Minster just a block or so away.  This was near the start of my walk.  It was about 9 on a Saturday morning and very quiet.  Hardly anyone was walking the wall.  I found an audio guide that I listened to all the way around the walls. 

My favorite view of the Abbey.  There were some beautiful private residences and gardens along this part of the walk. 

Part of the walls were replaced in Victorian times (1850s) and would not have met standards for defenses.  the arrow slits they rebuilt were far too narrow for even an expert marksman to shoot from.

In some parts of the walk there were trees right up against the wall (obviously not a good a idea when trying to defend the city, but these had grown since the time when the walls needed to be defended).

At one point the audio guide told me to look over the walls for a shiny leafed plant called Alexanders that likely dated back to Roman times and was introduced in England at that time.  I couldn't find a plant that I thought matched the description, but I looked it up out of curiosity.  Its known as smyrnium olustrum and grows along the Mediteranean coast, but is now naturalized in many parts of England.  It's stems could be eaten like asperagus among other uses.    

This is Monk's Bar (gate) and is about 700 years old.  The top level was probably added during the reign of Richard III. It had a spiked portcullis to seal the entrance.  It was last used in 1953 for the Queen's coronation celebration and took two weeks to get it up again because a chain broke.

Some of the Roman ruins of the original fortifications

An entire Roman fort existed here at one time.  The current city walls run along the north side of this fortification. 

The section of York's defenses consisted of a marshy lake instead of walls.  There is now a small nature reserve for water fowl.  It was once called King's fishpool because William the Conquerer ordered the river to be dammed to create a moat around the castle and there were strict laws about who could fish in the lake.  The dam was eventually converted to a lock when canal barge traffic increased.  In the 1830's people feared the smells from the waters were causing disease (miasma causing cholera) and the city paid people to fill it in.  It is now much smaller than it was. (There was no smell, just a lot of algae). I did see some ducks. 

This is Red Tower. It was built around 1500.  Every other wall tower is built of limestone quarried about 10 miles away but the city was short of funds and decided to use red clay bricks (the soil in the city is clay and many of the buildings are made of clay bricks).  Ships were not coming as far up river and were docking at Hull instead.  Leeds has less powerful guilds and business left for that city instead of facing the strong guilds that controlled competition.   The city wanted to add a new tower, but couldn't afford to pay the mason's guild, so they paid the tiler's to build it instead.  This led to high tensions and one tiler being murdered by a mason.  The Victorians built up the land around it, so it looks shorter than it once was when it sat on the Kings pond edge.

This is about half way round from my starting point near York Minster.  You can just see the bell towers and central tower in the distance. 

Fishergate Bar - Cart entrance.  It once had a tower, but was badly damaged in an attack in 1489 and was left bricked up for 340 years. Some of the stones were reddish.  The audio guide noted that magnesian limestone can redden from extreme heat, so this is likely from when the gate was burned in 1489. 

Pedestrian entrance

The mason's mark is on this stone.  The three lines like a W or a downward arrow. These are about 600 years old.  I wondered about why these were not vandalized, probably because someone would have to know what they were looking at. 

One of the turns in the wall, looking both directions.

Clifford's Tower.  This is a man made hill that dates to 1068 and William the Conquerer.  He put 500 soldiers in it to keep York conquered.  150 Jews living in the city died by suicide in the 12th century when a mob threatened to torture and kill them.  The front part of the tower where the entrance is was an addition built in 1640. 

Return across the River Ouse.  The bridge in the distance was the first one that I crossed when starting the walk.  The river was tidal until 1757 when the Naburn lock was built (one of the earliest efforts at canal engineering).  The sea and the port of Hull are 50 miles downstream!  As ships got bigger, they did not make it this far up river.

Tower at Baile Hill.

Image showing Cliffords tower (top right) and Baile Hill (middle left) with the river Ouse running between them. 

Yorkminster wasn't visible from much of the wall, but I got about 3 photos from different angles as I circled fully around. 

Micklegate Bar was the principal gate to the city and the main road south.  Traditionally monarchs were greeted at this gate with a presentation of the city sword.  Traitors heads were displayed here as well (in the arched niches on the sides). 

Side view of Micklesgate Bar

The larger arches in the wall here were made in the late 1800s when the train lines started coming through.  The train station is just on the other side of the wall. 

York Train Station

Full circle.  Minster view from the wall just before I made it back to the hotel.