Travels

All of last week (from Thursday, April 11^th-Thrus. April 18^th) was spent traveling across this crazy cool country.  From Havana, the northwest tip all the way the Baracoa, the most southeast point, we sojourned via air-conditioned, comfortable seats, big blue touristy bus.  Actually, instead of going the most logical route of straight from one point to another, hitting up must see provinces in between Havana and Baracoa, we looped and backtracked once we reached Baracoa to Santiago and back again.  In retrospect, it would have been best if we had flow straight to Baracoa since this would have taken less time on the road and more spent at the sights but whatevs.  In between our long bus rides (~  44 hours) we stopped at 2 fancy resorts and 2 comfortable hotels where we ate food like broccoli (I miss it so much!) as well as other greasy, not good for you buffet style meals. This great exploration was part of our spring break package complements of the University of Pittsburgh’s Pitt in Cuba program.  I’ll deconstruct the journey for you all!!

1.      X.  You are here: La Habana

We began in lovely Habana driving along El Malécon and past El Morro (the great fort/ castle built in the 17^th century to protect the city from pirates)  at 6:30 am.  I snapped a shot of the sun rising and illuminating the fort with my fancy camera and I would post it up here but my high quality Canon T2I takes really detailed pictures that have too much data for the slow proxy server here to process.  
>>> ~5/6 hours



2.      CairbarienThe first place we stopped for walk around, stretch was Cairbarien, a sleepy little town.  Its beautiful colonial architecture reminded me a lot of Habana Vieja (Old Havana) sans the tourist traps and people chasing after foreigners to make money.  No one tried to sway me into purchasing stuff however; I did spend a couple CUCs on souvenirs.     

>>>+ 30 minutes 

3.      Cayo Santamaria: Fat, Sunburned, English Speaking, We are So not in Cuba Anymore Tourist Country

Ok. So this place, this little country within Cuba frightened me.  Although I mostly speak English around my Pitt in Cuba travel buddies, and every now and then, hear random Canadians tourists speaking in the streets of Havana, speak English with Europeans or with the other American students here and there, this was the first time since I left the States that I heard the Queen’s English spoken all over the place.  We stayed at a super fancy resort where an all Cuban staff sucked up and faked smiled for tourists who couldn’t be bothered to explore the country via a Casa Particular (personal homes Cubans rent out to foreign travelers).  I’m so glad we stayed here for only a night because I would have gone crazy if we stayed any longer.  The all you can eat buffets, culture themed eating areas, multiple pools, manmade beach, and the overall decadence of our living conditions disgusted me.  I’m not sure why I had such a strong repulsion to this place because although the tourists here were so stereotypical with their sunburned faces and rotund, over fed bodies, I’m sure most of them were decent middle/upper middle class (Canadians mostly) who were here for a nice, well deserved vacation.  What really bothered me was that the average Cuban could never have access to all this food, all this comfort, and all these leisure activities.  The Cuban government brags about its great revolution in its press and on billboards, rants about how capitalism leads to moral depravity yet here in this supposed bastion for Leninist Socialism, non Cuban nationals have access to all the things many of the Cuban friends I have made dream about having.  Staying in this place made me feel dirty and depraved which is a bit silly of me since many people view this island as a vacation destination.  Anyways, let’s just say that I felt the most culture shock I have ever felt since first coming here.   

 

>>> ~10 hours

4.      Santiago de Cuba

As the second largest city after Havana, Santiago is bursting with things to do.  Unfortunately for us, we didn’t get to do all that much here since we only stayed for about two, non consecutive days.  L This place has a lot of African influence and is the birth place of the Son (dance style) and the Revolution of 1954.  Santiago and Havana have a rivalry of sorts but the scorching hot heat in this city makes Havana my favorite by default. We walked around the main streets (all shiny, clean, and complete with beautiful grand buildings and churches), visited La Iglesia de Cobre (the church of Cuba’s patron saint) where we were swarmed by people trying to sell us things.  Later on in the night, we had drinks at a bar, and swam in the hotel pool.  Yup, I didn’t really get to spend that much time to explore Santiago as I was looking forward to…
Surrounding around all the nice, clean, beautiful things were shanty towns and shacks.  Santiago was hit hard by Hurricane Sandy (bet CNN didn’t tell you that) and still, this city is trying to recover. 
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santiago_de_Cuba

From atop El Moro en Santiago (overlooking the waters below)

Massive Statue of Maceo a national hero from the Revolution of 1895

El Moro

>>> ~5 hours

5.      Baracoa <3

In 1492, Don Cristobal Colón (Christopher Columbus) set sail to find India in order to get rich or die trying (sorry 50 cent, MC CC was way ahead of you).  Oh, also he was on a quest to saves some souls by forcing the indigenous population to accept Catholicism more or less at gun point since Jesus was all about that life.  Lastly, he left the Old World to give recently reunited Spain some territory in Europe’s great race to conquer the rest of the world.  Unfortunately for him and the Native Americans, but luckily for those of us who call this side of the hemisphere home, he stumbled upon Cuba!  Imagine his surprise and anger when he realized that instead of elephants, spices, and gold, he landed on an island rich with natural beauty but poor in natural resources. Oh the irony!  But we all know how this story ends: diseases and hard labor devastated the native population and to replace this source of slave labor, the Spaniards shipped in people from the continent of Africa (mostly the Congo).  Yuppers, good times… 
Slowly driving up the curvy road carved onto the sides of the lush mountains made the long hours we sat in that bus more than worth it.  In the little town of Baracoa, I visited the Chocolate Museum, sat at the Malecón (a bunch of other cities in the country have their version of Havana’s famous sea wall along their bodies of water) and enjoyed the last day of festival.  I was very entertained by this dweeby reggeton group made of 2 young children (no younger than 13, I presume) but was kind of creeped out by their sexualized hinting in their very catchy rap.  All in all, Baracoa was very wonderful and I really wished that we had more time to see the nature resorts outside the little, quirky city.  One of the most famous nature reserves in the Caribbean ( Parque Nacional Alejandro de Humboldt ) is located there.    


From Wiki:
"Baracoa is a municipality and city in Guantánamo Province near the eastern tip of Cuba. It was founded by the first governor of Cuba, the Spanish conquistador Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar in August 15 of 1511. It is the oldest Spanish settlement in Cuba and was its first capital (the basis for its nickname Ciudad Primera, "First City").
Baracoa is located on the spot where Christopher Columbus landed in Cuba on his first voyage. It is thought that the name stems from the indigenous Arauaca language word meaning "the presence of the sea."
Baracoa lies on the Bay of Honey (Bahía de Miel) and is surrounded by a wide mountain range (including the Sierra del Purial), which causes it to be quite isolated, apart from a single mountain road built in the 1960s."

El Yanque: Columbus supposedly sketched this in his journals

>>>~5 hours

6.      Backtrack: Santiago de Cuba

Round two in Santiago was as eventful as round one.  Not very memorable, just walking around and hanging out.  Booooooooooo! >: (

The Sierra Maestra: Where the rebels of the Revolution hid, recovered, and triumphed.

>>>~6 hours

7.      Santa Clara

The province of Santa Clara is most famous for the Che Mausoleum and Museum where the remains of Ernesto Che Gueverra are buried along with the remains of about twenty or so less famous young revolutionaries who fought with him.  Cameras, bags, and other recording devices are not allowed in the mausoleum and understandably so.  There are so many images of Che plastered on billboards and painted along walls in this country.  The image of his handsome, rebellious face was initially captured by Korda and since this image was first published, it has become a symbol of revolution as well as a commercialized image stamped on paraphernalia for mass consumption.  In all the souvenir shops here, there are so many products for sale with Che’s face or profile.  Although he is very revered in Cuba, most people—especially young people—don’t speak about the revolution all that much.  Yeah, there is pro revolution propaganda all over the place but the revolution doesn’t seem all that relevant today or it doesn’t come up in my conversations with Cubans all that often.  

A Plaza in the town of Santa Clara

* Off the Bus! Yay! Onto a taxi. >>> ~1 hours
-For this part of spring break, we ditched our chaperons and explored the province as 8 American college students. Lol but we were actually pretty mild American college kids on spring break. ;)

8. Cienfuegos 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnQY6XziZjc
I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Cienfuegos!  It’s such a neat place with its lovely, ornate architecture. This province founded by the French—the only French colony here—but failed   and is currently one of the richer provinces in the country.  The streets were so clean and wrapping around the bay was Cienfuegos’ version of El Malecón where residents congregate during the night to chat and hang out.  The atmosphere here was distinctly different from Havana and in many ways, resembled Santiago since people are really chill and hospitable.  The one instance where we bumped into crummy human beings was on the night we arrived to the city when after walking the main square in search for food, we stumbled across an open paledar—privately owned restaurant.  We were super excited since we noticed that they sold mango batidos (smoothies) for $5 (what we assumed to be moneda) but after ordering, the waitress told us that everything was in CUC (converted currency for tourists).  BULLSHIT! We knew it was such a lie and when we asked to speak to the owner he spun the same nonsense.  Instead of paying the 5 CUC for a smoothie that costs a fragment of the price for Cubans, we just walked out without paying. 
Luckily for us, we asked a random person on the street for recommendations for where to eat and of course Cuba being Cuba and Cubans being Cubans, the two gentlemen stopped what they were doing to walk us to a place.  This was comical because one of the guys who lead us around had tattoos all down his shaved head and two tear drop tattoos falling down his eye.  I remarked to one of my friends that this meant that he killed not only one but two people as a member of whatever gang he belonged to.  None of us know the story behind the tear drop tattoos and we didn’t want to ask but whatever that guy’s life story is, he was super sweet to us so I guess it’s all good!
            Later during the night, we went out for drinks in a fancy shmancy bar after climbing a bunch of spiral stairs to get to the top.  Thus far, my favorite drinks are Piña Coladas, Mojitos, and the Mary Pickford I had on Sunday to celebrate a friend’s birthday.  I’m not that big of a drinker but I do enjoy my fair share of fruity drinks! ;) Anyways the next morning, we set out to visit museums and to walk through the plaza and see as much of the town as we could.  During the day, we went to the most AMAZING nature reserve where we swam in waterfalls and went hiking along a trail.  I really love that about this country.  One second you’re walking a city street, the next your strolling along a white sand, crystal, light blue water beach, and the next your observing endemic bird species in a gorgeous natural reserve!  It really is an idyllic sight for a vacation but I’m glad that I get to experience all this as a student living here for a couple months and not as a tourist visiting for a week or so because I get to interact with Cubans and to understand their country and all its complexities from them!      
Note:  I’ve had so many wonderful experiences of being lost in Havana and asking random people for directions and I’m always so surprised when they walk with me and engage me in conversations about where I’m from, how I like Cuba, or how they have family in the states (especially Miami).  It always makes me feel so welcomed and it’s so refreshing to meet such genuinely friendly people! :D