East Coast Village of Baracoa

Streetlife in pretty Baracoa
Originally uploaded by louise_parmenter

Baracoa was one of the highlights of my stay in Cuba. The journey itself was beautiful and interesting as it passed the town of Guantanamo (near the US Naval Base) and long stretches of coastal road before finally turning inland and winding up into the mountains before descending rapidly into a lush tropical landscape of palm trees, banana plantations, colourful cacti and traditional palm-leaf-roof huts. And then the road leads on to Baracoa, a very picturesque, laid back seaside town, where people seem to hang around in the shade all day long until late evening when the village is aroused from its lethargy by the sounds of live salsa resonating from various directions.

One day was spent strolling along the nearby black sand beach. I following a path into the mangrove where I reached a quaint river crossing. On the other side of this rickety old bridge a tiny fishermen's village of modest huts and fishing boats captured my curiosity, where on closer examination I discovered children fishing, colourful laundry hanging out on the palm trees, a delicious sugar cane drink and some stunning views over the bay back towards Baracoa village.

Another day was spent at a gorgeous, unspoilt beach to the north of Baracoa. I almost had the beach to myself. There must have been no more than five other people on the beach plus a large family of pigs, with four hungry piglets! I lunched exquisitely on lobster at a makeshift table in the shade of the mangrove. It didn't even occur to me that it might be illegal to serve lobster in Cuba and therefore necessary to hide me away in the mangrove!

Baracoa was a delightful town with interesting people, most of which were very keen to express opinions about their country. It was a good place to end my stay in Cuba and my two years and two months in Latin America.

Cuba to London
From here I was to begin my long 3-day journey back to London. Baracoa-Santiago, Santiago-Havana, Havana-Cancun, Cancun-London. Unfortunately the first leg by plane (Santiago-Havana) with Cubana Airlines was to give me one last memorable experience of Cuba: the flight was subject to a 20 hour delay, meaning I missed my Havana-Cancun flight and seemingly my Cancun-London flight too. I was relieved to hear that Cubana Airlines would take full responsibility for getting me back to London without any additional cost to me, but little did I know that these were lies. The 20 hours in Santiago airport were both heaven and hell. Hell because the airport had no facilities for communicating to Havana, Cancun or London, no internet, only local calls, absurd as that may sound for an airport! Heaven because they whisked us off to a 5-star hotel so that we could relax, eat, swim, use internet, while they washed their hair of us until they had completed their shifts! We eventually got on a plane. And what a plane! I cannot tell what model this propeller-driven craft was, but it was very old and probably ex-Soviet Union. There were no windows and the interior surfaces were sheet metal nailed together, which rattled scarily on landing and take off! It felt like flying in a sardine can and I prayed constantly during the two-hour flight. To my delight, in Havana I discovered that there was one flight that could get me to Cancun in time for my London flight. The Cuban representative of Mexicana Airlines deserves all the praise for having saved my bacon, and for having made my very last experience on Cuban territory a positive one.

Click here for the last photos of this mammoth trip!

DISTANCE TRAVELLED (OVERLAND) SINCE USHUAIA: 36,000 KM / 22,000MILES

Santiago de Cuba

Typical Cuban bookshop, selling approved literature.
Originally uploaded by louise_parmenter

Santiago is the second largest city in Cuba and is 860km east of Havana. My first impressions were of suffocating heat and narrow exhaust-fume filled streets, but was soon smiling again with a live salsa show, a delicious ice cream and a wander around the fascinating old bookshops. But there was little to hold me in this town so I was soon on my way again to the tropical east coast of Cuba.

Here are a few photos of Santiago.

DISTANCE TRAVELLED (OVERLAND) SINCE USHUAIA: 35,450 KM

Santa Clara

Che Guevara monument
Originally uploaded by louise_parmenter

The main attractions in Santa Clara are the Che Guevara memorials, which were very interesting and exciting to visit. Che's body was eventually removed from Bolivia, where he had been shot by a firing squad of the US-backed Bolivian army in the 1960s, and buried here in the mausoleum below the memorial pictured. I was impressed by the memorial, the beautifully designed mausoleum of local stone and timber and the museum dedicated to Che's life. To me he is more than a cult figure, more than an icon appearing on t-shirts all over the world. Having travelled most of Latin America and seen at first hand the desperate poverty of most indiginous people, the stark inequality of wealth and the constant US meddling in the politics of each Latin American country, I have come to highly respect Che's aims, although would never have joined a guerilla army had I been alive and in Latin America then.

The other memorial is a monument to Che's capture of the armoured and troop train of the Battista army in Santa Clara. The original train is displayed and houses documents concerning the successful operation whereby the track was damaged so that the train derailed and the troops were forced into open combat. It enabled the capture of Santa Clara and then of Havana.

Here are a few photos.


DISTANCE TRAVELLED (OVERLAND) SINCE USHUAIA: 34,945 KM

Trinidad

Trinidad, World Heritage Site
Originally uploaded by louise_parmenter

Trinidad is a World Heritage site, a quaint town similar to most Latin American colonial towns. But this was still Cuba, with the familiar sites of ration queues, street pizza, kids playing baseball in the streets with a piece of wood and plastic bottle lids (with great skill!).

Having left Havana the first thing that struck me was that we hardly passed another vehicle on the road during the 7-hour journey by bus. And public transport in Trinidad was varied, some local busses looked more like cattle trucks than human transport. Trinidad was a great place for tourists and locals to mix. The police presence was far less visible, there were nightly live salsa events where locals danced with tourists. But here you could also see a larger wealth gap between the average local and those involved in tourism: there are less black market and “inventive earning” opportunities here, it's a tiny village where tourism is enormous, so those in tourism earn around US$200/month while those working for the state earn just US$10-25/month. Here the requests were almost only for clothes, plastic bags and cooking oil, virtually no one asked for money. This is where I decided to donate a few items of clothings and other helpful bits and pieces.

Here are the photos.


DISTANCE TRAVELLED (OVERLAND) SINCE USHUAIA: 34,865 KM