Letter from Cuba 02
Ciao!!!
How are you? I'm sure all is going on very well. Today, with my travel diary, I'll bring you to see the city of Santiago de Cuba. This is probably the most important city in the history of Cuba as it was both the previous capital of Cuba and also the starting point of the Cuban Revolution. This place is quite far from where I lived, but I really needed to go to see it. In fact, I've read that it's the most Caribbean city of Cuba and I needed to go and see what it meant. I hope that you'll enjoy the diary of this trip!!!
Ciao
Franz
How are you? I'm sure all is going on very well. Today, with my travel diary, I'll bring you to see the city of Santiago de Cuba. This is probably the most important city in the history of Cuba as it was both the previous capital of Cuba and also the starting point of the Cuban Revolution. This place is quite far from where I lived, but I really needed to go to see it. In fact, I've read that it's the most Caribbean city of Cuba and I needed to go and see what it meant. I hope that you'll enjoy the diary of this trip!!!
Ciao
Franz
The streets of Cuba - The way to Santiago: When I was spending my holidays in Cuba I was told that there was a chance to leave the province of Holguin and to go and see the city of Santiago de Cuba. Seen that, when I planned this travel, I studied some of the Cuban history, I knew that this was a good chance that I shouldn't miss. In fact, this city in the past was both the former capital of Cuba and after it was even was the starting place of the Cuban Revolution that brought the "Isla Grande" to get rid of previous domination, and to earn its "new" Government. So, as you can imagine, I decided to go. On a Wednesday morning, I got up very early and I left the resort heading to Santiago. Seen that on the bus I was the only "single" traveler, the guide asked me to sit beside the driver. By this way I had a good chance to see better the streets and to picture all that was around us. Since we left the resort, I noticed a thing. The streets were empty. Only in the cities you could see cars, but outside of them, you could meet always less cars. In more, the most of the cars comes straight from the 1950's years. Since then, only few cars were imported in Cuba, and you can really see very old cars that previously I only seen in the American movies. As you can imagine, see that there are few cars, they have impossible price for the average Cubans. So, you often meet people on the sides of the streets hitchhiking. To help those people, a law say that, every governmental truck (almost every truck belongs to the state) has to stop on certain places and, if it has room, has to carry these people. The way to Santiago lasted about three hours. Almost all the time, we were running on empty streets, which many parts were broken for years and not anymore repaired. On this group of pictures you can see, in the first one, a typical Cuban car, in the second some Cubas (the bicicle on the left is used as a Taxi) and on the third you can see a governmental truck unloading people.
Santiago de Cuba - La Plaza de la Revoluciòn: As soon as we entered in Santiago de Cuba we had a good chance to see one of the most important squares. This is "La Plaza de la Revoluciòn", a square named after one of the Revolutions happened in Cuba. The square is also named for the General Antonio Maceo. This General was one of the Cuban leaders in the revolution against Spain. The interesting things about this General and also the statue are that his parents were one "white" and one "black" and this, for the Cubans in the Revolution, was also a symbol that the was the leader of all, both "white" and "blacks". In more, the statue has an hand that is far too much big for an human body... But this was wanted as a symbol of strength. Next to him, you can also see some strange "copper pillars" coming out of the ground. We asked to our guide what they meant, and they are representation of a group of machetes (long knives). This was a work instrument for the Cubans, and seen that they hadn't weapons, they used these knives as a weapon in the revolution. You can see them in the second picture. The square is very famous in Cuba and it's used for the carnival and also parades. Even when the Pope came to Cuba, he spoke on this square. The city is packed of propaganda, and in the fourth and fifth pictures you can see some examples of boards with propaganda about the revolution (you often see the pictures of Fidel Castro and Che Guevara). As soon as you come to Santiago, you'll meet something that you can barely meet in the other parts of Cuba, I'm talking about the "Jineteros". The jineteros are people that try to live taking money from the tourists. They are an obsession and sometimes you feel the need to be rough with them. These people just wait that a bus comes and as soon as a tourist comes down, they surround him. They can act in different way, they can ask you money, they can ask you for goods (pens, shirts, watches, sunglasses, etc...) that they'll sell on their own, they even try to sell you some stuff (some rum, cigars, coins, etc...), maybe they even try to sell some information to you, etc... As soon as we came to the "Plaza de la Revoluciòn", we were assaulted by the jineteros. I just made my way through them, just saying that I needed nothing from them, but my friends weren't so good and were stuck among them. One of them even had the "brilliant" idea to promise to a jinetero to buy some cigars from him. In that way, the jinetero followed us all the day long, until the "friend" didn't buy them!!! Can you believe? But the worst was that the "real" jinetero was the guide that brought us to Santiago. He even tried to sell me a lot of stuff on the bus, for example, double priced cigars (I already knew prices because I had my "dealer" of Cuban stuff in Holguin) and even a bottle of cheap rum for 50 Euro!!! For that money I can buy ten of them in the malls of my city (luck that I like rum and I know a bit about it).
Santiago de Cuba - The Rum Business: One of the main industries in Cuba is the production of rum. Probably only the production of cigars is most important of the rum one. When you're in Cuba, you'll be offered many times to buy cigars and rum too. Seen that there are quite strict laws on the exportation, you have to chose carefully what you're about to buy. In fact, you can export "freely" up to 23 cigars. If you have more of them, you need to have some bill from the shop that sold it to you (police says that it's because on this way they check that you don't buy too many good from the "mercado nigro" that could be "fake" cigars or cigars smuggled from the factories). Even if you have the bill of the shop, you can't have more than a certain amount of cigars with you (I didn't care, because I only bought five of them for my friends). The interesting this is that the limit of exportation of the cigars is 23, but the cigar boxes are of 5, 10, 25 cigars!!! So, if you buy a box of 25 cigars, you need the bill... But if you buy it in a shop, you could be asked the double or more than for the smuggled ones. The solution was that my friend that bought about 30 cigars, gave to me ten of hers, to hold for her to the coming back. The restrictions about rum are that you can bring outside of Cuba only up to 2 liters of it. The problem is that the bottles are of 750 cl... So, if you buy three of them, you'll be over the limit. Anyway, I was told that "three bottles can be exported". I only bought one, but I thought "damn if I buy three and on the airport I'd be asked to leave one to them, I'd rather "slip it" from my hands and smash it, than leaving it to the guys that probably will sell it at the "mercado nigro"). When we came to Santiago we were brought by the "Mr. Jinetero guide" to a rum factory. He just left us in the middle of a swarm of jineteros and we had to make our way to the gate of the factory. When we entered the gate, we found ourselves into a shop... I asked to the guide what was it, and he said "the shop of the factory, we can't see the production". I just watched around myself and I was offered some watery rum. The good was that a few guys were playing music, and were quite good (you can see them in the first picture). When I was there inside two ladies came to me and asked me about the rum there inside. I told them that it wasn't very good, it was watery and the prices are like those that you see in Italy. They didn't believe me and they went to buy something. I still listened some music and then, I made my way out of that shop. On the bus, the ladies told me that they bough some good rum and they shown me the bottles, proud of their buying. It was the same rum that you can buy in cheap malls in Italy and it was bough at the same price. A very smart deal... Later we were taken around Santiago to a street with very beautiful mansions. We were told that almost all the rich families living there escaped from Cuba in the years 1950's at the beginning of the revolution. Now those houses belong to the State and many aren't beautiful anymore. The most beautiful is the one that you can see in the second picture of this group. This house belonged to the Bacardi family, that was the main producer of rum of Cuba. This family escaped during the revolution and moved the production to the USA. Now it's one of the bigger producers of the world. The house now belongs to the State and was turned into a museum.
Santiago de Cuba Bay - El Castillo del Morro: The city of Santiago rises on a bay surrounded by mountains. This thing was the one that made this city the "chosen one" for the Cuban revolution. Through the centuries of the Cuban history, the city of Santiago was a very important place. In fact, the Santiago Bay, was a very important place for the ship travels in the Carribean sea. Here were brought many things by the surrounding places and also much gold from Mexico, ready to be brought to Europe. Thanks to this, here was also one of the preferred places also for the pirates and enemy nations. So, the Spanish decided to build a fortress to guard the bay. This fortress is called "El Castillo del Morro". Now this place was renewed and was turned into a museum about the pirates. When you enter, you find out that the museum part is the less interesting to see, because all your interest is taken by the same fortress and the beautiful landscape around it. This fortress is on a corner and on a side you can see the open sea with its beautiful colors, and on the other you can see the quiet bay. In the fourth and in the sixth pictures you can see the small island of "Cayo Granma". Actually "Granma" is a much used name for many things in Cuba. In fact, the ship used by Fidel Castro to come back to Cuba, after his exile, and to start the last revolution, was called "Granma". I only seen this island from far, but I was told that it's a very nice place, with very relaxed atmosphere and very good fish restaurants.
Santiago de Cuba - The streets of Santiago: The most beautiful part of Santiago is the historical center. On our trip to Santiago we were left free to walk through the historical center, starting from the main square, the Parque Cèspedes. In spite of the name "Parque" it's not a real park. It's a clean and cozy square with some flowers and benches at the shadow of few trees. When you're there, if you stand in the middle, you just keep on turning and turning on yourself, because you're surrounded by beautiful colonial builings, and you don't know which one to watch first. Looking in the order of the pictures, as soon as you'll be on the parque, you'll notice a very beautiful church on it. It's the "Catedral de Nuestra Senora de Asunciòn". On the opposite side of the square, facing to the church, you'll see the "Ayuntamiento", a building very dear to the Cubas, seen that here it's the place of the first speech of Fidel Castro after the Cuban Revolution. On the left of the "Ayutamiento", you'll see a very big and beautiful building in colonial style. It's the "Hotel Casa Granda". We were told that you can go there for very good drinks and from the roof you can have the most beautiful sight of the center of Santiago de Cuba. On the opposite side of the square, in face of the "Hotel Casa Granda", you can see a building that is called "Casa de Diego Velàzquez". We were told that this is the oldest building of the all Caribbeans. After a short stop on this square, and after getting rid of a swarm of jineteros, we started to walk through the streets of the city. This time, I had to walk around the center with my group of Italian friends, even if I would prefer to walk those streets alone. People were always stopping to every seller and also every shop, and I had to waste my time waiting for them. While walking down a street called "Heredia" and talking to a friend of mine, we noticed a small bookstore. And was there that we found the real Cuba. We got inside, and this was a small piece of the Cuba that I dreamed. A bunch of guys were playing Cuban music, while the seller came to us to have a short cheerful talk. The shop is be very old, and on a side there was hanging a real picture taken to Che Guevara. If you watched more carefully the shop, you'd notice that every place had pinned many business cards of the people that came there. Of course, I wanted to leave a trace of my coming here too... So, if you go there, you can find, next to the door a business card with my name and signature over!!! Still walking down the street we found that a musical school was open and we were invited to see their "patio". In fact, most of the old Cuban houses have a private garden. In the last pictures of this group you can see how beautiful it looked. It was a very nice surprise to discover the beauty of this hidden corner of Cuba. Later, my friends decided to go to the roof of the "Hotel Casa Granda", but I decided to leave them, and to have a walk by myself. This time, no jinetero came to me, and I had a chance to have a walk and enjoy again the Cuban atmosphere. Feeling the Caribbean music coming form some bar and watching the relaxed lifestyle of Santiago de Cuba around me. Later we came back to our place in Holguin. We spoke much about this trip to Santiago. On the end we agreed that the place is very beautiful and worth to be seen, but the guide, probably knowing the jineteros, gave us some hard time. I think that if we went there by ourselves, would be much easier. Anyway, the trip to Santiago was worth to be done.