Santiago de Cuba: April 20th-23rd

Hello again all of you that have been reading my blog. I am back from Cuba, but I have decided I must at least write about the last few trips and then maybe some of the people.

Santiago de Cuba

I have been excited about our class trip to Santiago almost as long as I had been in Cuba. Santiago is across the Island from Havana. While Havana may be the only city people here about when outside Cuba, Santiago is arguably historically more important. The Sierra Maestre mountain range is right next to Santiago and it sits on a bay that opens to the Caribbean Sea. Every major war (independence and revolution) started in the east and was generally decided by the time they reached Havana. The essence the movements started in the east in the Sierra Maestre and in Santiago. The July 26th movement is named for the July 26th 1953 attack on the Moncada barracks in Santiago (which we went to while we were there).
There is a lot of Santiago vs. Havana sentiment among people in Cuba, particularly because of baseball. Santiago is the Red sox’s of Cuba to Havana as the Yankees. And I think people in Santiago are much more into baseball than in Havana. At the stadium in Havana when the teams play there are as many Santiago fans as Havana fans, because so many people from Santiago now live in Havana. The weekend we were in Santiago was actually during the playoff (I would say a bigger deal than our “world series’ as it is really what everyone talks about). Unfortunately the first games were played in Santiago while we were in Havana, the series moved to Havana while we were in Santiago, and when we got back to Havana the end of the series was back in Santiago. However, the game did very much affect our time in Santiago. Our second night there a large group of us went out in search of music and dancing, unfortunately every place seemed to be closed (well many of the places) and finally we ended up at a major square that was projecting the game. So while I didn’t actually get to go to a game in the series, I got to have a little bit of feel for the sentiment of the fans and the sheer intensity of it all. Santiago ended up winning the series, but the night we were watching it in Santiago they lost, which meant we had to keep quiet about being from Havana.

I will know back track a little in getting to Santiago. We left Havana at about 10 at night for the 13-20 hour bus ride to Santiago (it took us about 15 hours on this trip) and ended up in the hot hilly Santiago with droopy eyes. We really didn’t think it would be much hotter than Havana, because at that point when it's hot, it's just hot. But there was a definite noticeable difference in heat and almost no shade to speak of, and honestly the hills top it off making it more tiring. The whole group was on this trip again, excluding my darling roommate Elena, and my close friend Kelly, and our fearless leader Marguerite- who were enjoying the quiet time in the house back in Havana, and I missed them, but it made reuniting better. One of my friends from UNC, Laura, and I stayed together at a Casa Particular at the top of a hill across the street from a beautiful garden for a seminary and we ate all our meals on the roof overlooking the city. And don’t worry when we arrived sleep deprived in the heat of Santiago everyone went their separate ways to put our stuff down, but met back up within the hour to start exploring Santiago. Various groups enjoyed going to lunch and then a museum in one of the oldest houses in Cuba off of one of the main squares, and the museum of the carnival, complete with seeing the daily performance that goes on (both museums were actually very cool) and then three of us walked down to the bay where kids were running around and docks were being unloaded, and the light was streaming through the clouds onto the Sierra Maestre and the water, and a loan musician was practicing his trombone. Walking around the first afternoon my friend Derek and I were really noticing all of the signs off buildings, because old photos of Havana has all sorts of light up signs and advertisements in the streets that don’t exist anymore. But some of the major streets in Santiago still have them.

That night we had big plans as it was Derek’s birthday and met up in one of the main squares-that of course had more Frozzens. The guy at this stand asked me if I was of some Latin decent- and in my enjoyment of the conversation the Frozzen was just that much better. There is also this “train” for kids to ride on that a guy on a bike rides around the square over and over. About 10 of us just ended up going to a rooftop patio overlooking the city and it ended up being the perfect thing to do and really nice night just being with friends in a new city (I had had my hesitations because there were only two guys with us and that many girls on that little sleep can at times be a problem, but it was absolutely lovely).

The next day a group of eight of us decided to make our way to the cemetery, which has the tomb for Jose Marti, complete with an every half hour changing of the guard. Many other important Cuban figures are also buried in this relatively large cemetery, which my culture teacher describes as the only cemetery he likes because it has a better feeling than all other cemeteries.

We decided we would take a horse drawn cart to get to the cemetery a few Kilometers from where we were staying in the city. Our plan was to just take it with the Cubans that were waiting. However, when the next horse pulled up, looking in desperate need of a break- the driver came up to me and asked where my group of eight would like to go and we negotiated a price. At this point there were already Cubans at the back of the cart trying to get on and the driver told us to get on. I had to walk by this old man and was the first on the cart. We asked if we could just go with the people that were waiting but the cart driver said no. The people were yelling at the driver asking why we got to go before them and the old man just looked up at me and said, of course-they are tourists. I was absolutely disgusted by the injustice of the whole situation and the fact that I was the injustice putting the distain in the old man’s eyes made it even worse. I was at the point of leaving the cart, but the truth was that was the injustice of any methods of transportation we would have taken. The truth was this kind of thing had already happened countless times; it was just that this experience was so poignant. The driver also couldn’t take any other locals, because it was illegal for him to transport them and us together. The whole situation really brought to the surface how I felt about being a tourist, in a country that protects and depends on their tourists, and how much money even in a socialist country made these divides. I am sure I could right much more on that and the injustices to the horse, but I talked to the driver and he was very aware of the health of the horse so I felt a little better.

The cemetery was very interesting and on our way back four of us broke off and went to a street fair completely devoted to stands on health issues. At this point I was thinking only in Cuba would this happen- but I suppose it happens other places. And then we went to a beautiful old house that housed the Clandestino’s museum. The museum furthers my interest in Juan Almieda Bosque (who led the third front in the Cuban revolution) but is always photoed with this amazing smile)- he is actually back in the government after a brief retirement so I still don’t have as much info on him as I would like.

Then we stopped for a lovely lunch at a restaurant where a girls quince (the coming out party for girls when they turn 15-like a bigger deal sweet 16). We enjoyed the afternoon by catching a cab to the mouth of the bay to the Morro Castle. The location is absolutely beautiful, but the most important part of this visit was the museum part inside with a room devoted to pirates. If you care to read the displays, don’t worry I photographed each one and then I posed next to the drawings of some of the pirates. We explored the rest of the castle and went for a little hike around it to wait for the cannon ceremony at sunset. Actually we had a lot of time before the ceremony and ended up playing some card games and running into more people from a group before the cannon.

That night was the baseball game and the next morning were the Moncada barracks. Afterwards a group of 6 of us spent a good deal of time trying to work out affordable transportation with cab drivers and finally got a van to drive us to the Gran Piedra. Literally a large rock at the top of a mountain and the second highest point in Cuba. I have truthfully never been as dizzy as I was due to the drive up the mountain and hiking the path up to the gran piedra- due to the crazy drive and the sudden elevation difference. It was absolutely beautiful though and don’t worry they sold chocolate and coffee at the top. We also ran into a guy that had seen us the day before at el morro, who convinced me to buy the coffee that was not ground so it would stay fresh longer and he convinced me by saying he remember me by my pretty face (I actually think it was the large camera, but I didn’t want to argue). Turn out I never had a way to grind the coffee and left it as a present for my Cuban friends, because it is illegal to bring home.

After this we went to an artist community and I ended up staying talking to one painter the entire time with my friend Alex, because she had started him on a very intense conversation, that in reality was an intense conversation that covered almost everything in life, as good Cuban conversations tend to do. He was an extremely interesting man and it may have been one of my most valuable conversations in Cuba.

We finished the afternoon by going to El Cobre- which is the site of the church to our Lady of Charity the patron saint of Cuba- so it is a very important pilgrimage sight. And on the way back the driver of our Cadillac cab stopped on the side of the road to buy us coconuts to drink on the way back into town. Luckily none of us really liked it, but had to try to finish them anyway, which Laura and I left to the guys. We ended the evening hanging out in a Trovas bar listening to music, which was horribly touristy and mainly of the mid-life European crowd, but still decent music and very persistent Cuban men trying to get us to dance.

(I hope you are taking this as a short story at this point….)

The next morning I woke up and was trying to get Laura going, until she finally asked me to feel her head and she was burning up with a fever. I decided I would meet to our of friends as planned but then find her more medicine before the 15 hour bus ride back to Havana. I left Laura sleeping and had breakfast with the woman running our casa, who was complaining about it being cold and her bones hurting (it was 70-75 degrees) but I guess that was a cold morning for Santiago. I rushed to the park to get there in time and then ended up waiting. It was a Monday morning and part of me wanted to photograph the morning rush full of kids in uniform and stops at window openings for coffee. The other part of me didn’t want to be bothered and the camera would have made me really stick out, so I decided to blend in and wait for my friends. After a half hour they still hadn’t shown up, so I walked to another square, thinking maybe we had missed communicated. Finally at the hour point, I decided I would go to the house they were supposed to be staying at. Luckily I chose the correct door and the owner of the house happily let me in. The boys were going about getting ready as if they weren’t super late and I was trying to play it cool, but I guess my face doesn’t lie. My friend asked me what was wrong, and I replied I had been waiting in a park alone for an hour. He responded, well aren’t we supposed to meet at nine and I looked down at my watch and sure enough it was 5 minutes before nine, not 9:55. (It is important to note the hour hand in conjunction with the minute hand on watches.) And basically no one had acted strange all morning that I was operating on a very early schedule.

And then I set out for the day again. Made some more stops with them and bought a much-needed orange juice, that I ended up carrying around with me all day, and it prevented me from having enough hands free for more photos. (I realize you don’t need to know such things, but if my friends from the trip ever read this they will appreciate these random comments.) And I ended up wandering off from my friends to track down medicine for Laura, which also gave me some time to wander the city alone (one of my favorite activities when traveling). This also became one of my favorite mornings in Cuba as I got to explore an art gallery and then sit on the floor of a bookstore getting lost in books of Cuban poetry and trying to decide what I could afford and bring back with me, while absorbing what I couldn’t.

The mission for the medicine was quite entertaining as I only wanted a fever reducer, but health care and medicine is very serious there. Everyone wanted to know more symptoms so they could give me the right medicine for my friend, but all I knew was she had a fever. And of course I had to go to multiple places and explain the situation every time and that it was time sensitive as we were leaving about 3 hours later. Everyone was very kind and finally after one man walked me to another store and made sure the woman understood me, the woman settled on getting me the most generic fever medicine she could. I think the medicine worked wonders and Laura got home just fine.

The only way our director could get the whole group back to Havana was to put 25 of us on 4 different buses back. So I was in a bus with 5 of my friends from UNC and at about 7 the bus stopped and we had a half hour break for dinner. Unfortunately everywhere near the bus stop would take about a half hour to make anything- and if this was the time they were telling us upfront we knew it would take longer than that in Cuba. Finally we decided to choose this place and ended up only being able to order essentially cheese balls and fried bananas for dinner. The restaurant we had stopped at was connected to a bigger hall where a girl's Quince was actually going on. I really needed to use the bathroom and asked the owner where the bathroom was to which he pointed into the room full of people and a 15 year old girl lip sinking a song of thanks to her mother in the middle of the dance floor. I tried to refuse, not wanting to interrupt, but he then escorted me through the party and had one of his waitresses guard the door as I used the restroom. As I tried to sneak back out, it had almost been a half hour and the food still wasn’t ready. As it came out we tried rushed to find a bag or something to take it with us. So we quickly grabbed some to shove in our mouths and shoved the rest in a bag to take off running. It was quite poetic as the sun was running and the bus was in that direction, so we were running full speed with a bag full of cheese balls toward the sunset. And somehow not only did we make it on the bus without our seats given away, we also all didn’t get sick from our choice dinner while sprinting.

It was a long night on the rest of the ride and we arrived about 7 in the morning, but it was a great trip.