Baracoa 3

In the morning, I went over to J's casa to meet her and the Australian girls, and find out what the planned outing was about. It seemed that the 4 of us could hire a taxi and a guide to climb El Yunque, a low hill and national monument about 10km outside Baracoa. I needed bottled water. The cafeteria was too expensive and there was a queue at the tienda (shop). Fortunately J's landlady came to the rescue, giving me a bottle out of their fridge. Bless her. I gave them a Rubik's Cube keyring in gratitude. It was probably a cruel present, because on my return in the evening, the family begged me to twiddle it back to its Garden of Eden state, which I didn't know how to do.

At the provincial office we bought a park permit for $25, then set off in the taxi to the campismo (campground) at the foot of El Yunque. First we had to wade across a river. I regretted wearing jeans and sneakers instead of shorts and boots. Well I didn't have boots anyway, but my jeans got soaked to the knees. At least I had cossies underneath.

It was a tiring hike uphill through the sub-tropical vegetation, but punctuated by frequent explications of plants and animals by the guide, who worked as a park ranger and researcher. The picture on the right is of a cacao tree. According to him, quite a few foreign researchers came to study the fauna of the Baracoa area. I asked if he could have a chance for an overseas scientific exchange. He said it would require a grant from a foreign government. As expected due the economic situation of Cuba.

The millipede in the picture prompted the ranger to tell us a joke. A rakish rabbit is trying to flatter a lady millipede walking past. He says: What beautiful legs you have, what beautiful legs you have, what beautiful legs you have...

We reached the peak in 3 hours. The view from the top of the coast and Bay of Baracoa was indeed wonderful, if a little hazy. There wasn't much room at the peak. There would have been even less if the hill did not have a table top. (Yunque means anvil.) We each ate our own packed lunch there. I had some müsli.

These palms had a shape that I had never seen before and not since. All too soon it was time to go down. It was less tiring, but on the other hand I had to rely a lot on trunks, branches and roots for handholds as the path was slippery with mud in many places. J did not have well-fitting shoes and eventually the pain got to her. She broke down in tears and could not take another step. We paused to let her rest. One of us carried her daypack and the ranger lent her his shoes, walking barefoot himself. Tough man.

These are a couple of cacao pods. The ranger opened up one to show us the beans inside surrounded by sour flesh.

I was glad of the chance to wash the mud off my sneakers on the return crossing even if they got thoroughly soaked. A bit further downstream, the ranger showed us a place where we could have a dip, which the girls did. On return to Baracoa, we all gladly chipped in to give the ranger a few dollars more than his asking price for such friendly and helpful service.


That evening the 4 of us attended a floor show at La Teraza, a show venue in Baracoa. It was like a much smaller and cheaper version of Tropicana. They played some familiar boleros. I think the girls were disappointed; they were expecting something more modern.


According the girls, a contact would make discreet enquiries about a private taxi to Holguin via the Moa coastal road. (Private taxis are illegal in Cuba, since everything belongs to the state.) I was still harbouring ideas of visiting Santiago on the way back but from J's description I decided to give that up.

Baracoa 2

Saturday was May Day, so there would be celebrations. Baracoa is cozy enough to allow one to savour that without enduring much pomp. From the casa I heard street bands parading on the coastal road from Moa towards the centre. After breakfast I walked down to the main plaza, but nothing was happening there. Nothing was happening on the Malecón either, except some food stalls setting up. No sign of my fellow travellers. So I went back to the main plaza. There a local, noticing my puzzlement, told me: la puta. Huh? The whore? Ah, he must have said la punta (the point). Cuban Spanish is lazy and drops consonants. I thanked him and headed for the point.

There was a stiff onshore wind blowing, sending up fountains of seaspray and wetting the Malecón. There were bands and floats ready to parade towards the point.

This is what a Russian Lada looks like. It resembles the Fiat 124 for the unsurprising reason that it is a copy.

At the point there was a grandstand. I found the Dutch couple there. There were interminable speeches and presentations of prizes for best cooperative, best worker, best student, ad nauseum. After taking pictures, I found that I had lost the girls. So I stuck with the Dutch.

The moment the blah blah was over, and not a single local thought it too soon, festivities broke out and the beer flowed. We decided to relax on a quiet beach somewhere. Playa Duaba, to the west, visible from El Castillo, was 6 km away and too far to walk. So we headed southeast again, towards Rio Miel. The Dutch girl tired easily so we stopped to rest. A peddler kept bothering us to buy some medicinal coconut oil until I blew my top and gave him a piece of my mind. We eventually found a good spot on the beach and I had a swim in the Atlantic.

On our way back we bumped into the girls, heading out. I bought a ham sandwich on the Malecón, followed by a pork roll, which was less tasty due to fat and gristle. We had soft drinks and ice cream at the La Rusa. The Dutch went to listen to some street music and I went back to the casa to wash my clothes and have a siesta.


In the evening I went for a stroll and met the girls. There was no sign of the Dutch, maybe the girl was too tired. We hung around the plaza for a while, mingling with the locals and drinking beer. The girls decided to go to a disco with some Cuban dudes, and since disco music was not to my taste, I retired for the night.

Baracoa 1

There was supposed to be a minibus to Playa Maguana, a beach outside Baracoa. The landlady said the bus left at 1030 so I walked to J's casa after breakfast. She had been told 1000 by her casa so she had called my casa, just after I had left. It was moot because at 1100, the bus driver said that the trip wasn't on because there weren't enough passengers.

So we spent the day walking along the beach to a nearby river mouth called Rio Miel (Honey River). The beaches around Baracoa have black volcanic sand instead of the usual white stuff. On the way we bumped into Bobby, a Cuban hip hop singer J had met the night before. He guided us along the track.

On the way we happened upon this fisherman returning with his catch of crabs and he was gracious enough to let me take a picture of him.

Bobby showed us native plants, and plucked wild fruits for us to taste, such as coconuts, mangoes and wild almonds.

Bobby had a sidekick dog and I think it was the first dog that I have ever seen tuck into coconut with gusto. I suppose you can't be choosy if you are a Cuban dog.

There was a little village at Rio Miel and to cross to the other bank we took a skiff for a few pesos. The skiff was a transportation service for the locals.

There was a swimming beach on the bank of the river. J had a dip in the water, but I didn't.

At the promontory at the end of the walk we met a Dutch couple. It seemed that there was live music in town that night and we agreed to meet at 2100 for that.


Back in town, we stopped for a drink at the Casa de Chocolate. There is some cocoa production in the Baracoa area. Cuban chocolate is rough and the difference was obvious when I brought out the last of my Belgian chocolate to share. This is what chocolate should taste like, said J to Bobby.

This yellow building is the Hotel La Rusa originally called Miramar at construction. It was founded by a Russian émigré called Magdalena Menasses Rovenskaya, or just La Rusa to the Cubans. She had a colourful life as an artiste in Europe after fleeing her homeland in the wake of the Russian revolution because of her aristocratic forebears. In the 1940s she and her husband settled in Baracoa and built the hotel. Many personalities including Fidel and Che have passed through the hotel. From 1953 onwards, sensitive to the suffering of the people, she helped the revolutionaries against Batista, ironically for the same kind of political cause that forced her out of her homeland as a child. (Note from the future: In 2008, Hurricane Ike inflicted devastation on Baracoa. I was saddened to recognise the hotel in a picture of a monster tidal wave hitting land. I believe it is being restored.)


That evening, 6 of us, the Australian girls, the Dutch couple, J and I, showed up at the Casa de la Musica, with Bobby in tow. We had a bottle of rum and some beers. The music included traditional boleros some of which I recognised but it was too loud for conversation. The girls danced a little. At the end of the night I returned to my casa with a heavy head.

To Baracoa

Two Australian (I found out later) girls got onto the Viazul bus at Camagüey. Cuba seems to like compound words for brands, e.g. Viazul (Blue Way) or Islazul (Blue Island). Furthermore the A in Viazul was an icon of a highway vanishing into the distance, becoming the apex of the A. The air-conditioning in the bus was cold, and I wished that I had taken out a T-shirt for my arms.


At sunrise we arrived in Santiago de Cuba. The de Cuba is to distinguish it from other Santiagos, such as Santiago de Compostela and Santiago de Chile; this is common practice with city names that are ambiguous, such as Salvador. I had not intended to stay in Santiago, even though it was Cuba's second largest city. It was said to be full of jineteros and its streets difficult to navigate. That, and the lack of something specific that I wanted to see, didn't make it attractive to me. However it is Cuba's most Caribbean city and has a strong, unique musical heritage. (Note from the future: At that time I didn't know as much about Cuban music. If I were doing the trip today, I would probably take in Santiago.) I got a forward ticket to Baracoa with no problems and never left the bus station.


We transited Guantánamo city, which looked small and underdeveloped. It gives its name to the song Guantánamera (Girl from Guantánamo), probably the best-known Cuban song in the world. The US has a naval base in a nearby bay, an anomaly of history. I didn't actually see it, but there is a vantage point on high ground outside the city for the curious. That name gained world notoreity after the events of 2001. The route got hilly as we crossed the range surrounding Baracoa, almost at the eastern edge of the island. Baracoa is therefore somewhat isolated. It is where Columbus made landfall in Cuba on his first journey.

At a roadside rest stop, I bought a coconut and cocoa confection wrapped in banana leaves and shared some with one of the Aussie girls and J, an English girl sitting in front of me. She offered me a banana, which I accepted, whereupon she held out her hand and said 5 pesos. Sense of humour, that's good. She was currently teaching English in Spain, but had worked for a year in Australia.

At Baracoa bus station, I made my escape from the touts by exiting via a side door. But I was pursued by a woman offering a room, despite my protestations of ya tengo (I already have) until I was out of town. I arrived at the casa that Berta had given me an address for but nobody was in. Probably at the bus station looking for lodgers—what an irony. Eventually an old lady answered the door. She was the landlady's mother. Yumi eventually returned and looked at me in mock exasperation, arms akimbo. I saw you at the station, but you ignored all offers, she huffed. She was a recently widowed mother of two young kids, still young and vivacious; her late husband had been an older man, an artist. There were mosquitoes in the area but fortunately the room had air-conditioning. Still, it took a while for the machine to displace the warm air.

I napped until evening, then went looking for J. At her casa, they told me she had gone to Hotel El Castillo (Castle Hotel). I thought they meant a hotel in town, then I realised that it must be the hotel on the rise overlooking the town. I found J there by the pool chatting with Brits from a UK tour group. I envied that they had all their arrangements taken care of, and they envied us for having the freedom to go wherever and whenever we pleased. I walked J home and went back to my casa for dinner. We had agreed to meet the next day to go to the beach. The landlady was a bit worried when I got back about 10 minutes late for dinner. After dinner I chatted for a while with her and a cousin of hers who was helping out with the housework.