Travel with us: Communism?

The last of the Cuba posts, this covers the last week from the far eastern end of the island and back to Havana. We are in NYC at the moment, and we’ll be in touch with pictures from here in a week or so.

Santiago, our next stop after Camagüey, is scorched earth, choking vehicle fumes and cool stares from locals. Fidel poured a lot of resources into Santiago post the Revolution to improve the quality of life of local residents. He still has quite the following in Santiago, which we couldn’t say about the rest of the country – the youth especially seems frustrated at being held back from progress, resentful of travellers for a myriad of reasons.

Cuba’s oldest house is in the middle of the city – the former home of Diego Velásquez. The Santiago de Cuba region is also home to Cuba’s most important Catholic Church, El Cobre that the Pope visited some years back – there are two masses per day and they’re always full. There’s a fair mixture of Santería African religious belief with the Catholicism that is practised but this is accepted, if not openly. A small island in the middle of the bay in which Santiago sits is home to beautiful houses, a slower pace of life and friendlier group of locals. At the head of the harbour is El Morro, one of the 3 remaining, former Spanish forts guarding the city from pirates. Most of the mined, Central American gold and silver was melted down in Santiago for transportation to Europe so it was a fairly hot target for pirates. The fort has many sealed rooms and passageways that even Cuban historians don’t know much about. The government is apparently waiting for UNESCO funding and equipment before the rooms are to be opened.

Baracoa, another five hours to the far east of Cuba in Guantanamo province is leafy and quiet, and we enjoyed two days wandering through the neighbourhoods. We walked everywhere here; one morning for a good few hours in the hot sun (probably not a good idea) up to Che Guevara’s Fabrica de Chocolate. We also wandered around the rocky beach and even did a bit of running before the sun came out. Apart from two other people in three weeks, we haven’t seen anyone else out running here.

Back in Havana we stayed with a solo mum and her 18 year old son in Vedado, a leafier, quieter suburb than down town Habana Veija. I won’t get into a politics discussion here, but the conversations we had with the family were pretty thought provoking. The whole trip has been, really. We took a bus tour around the city for a few hours, which was a great way to see some key sights; and travelled up to the rooftop of the old Bacardi offices where you can really see how much of the city is crumbling. It’s as if the buildings are all falling apart faster than they can be put back together here. Hopefully there is a cash injection soon to keep some of these buildings from total destruction.

All up, Cuba has been amazing: beautiful beaches, mountains, architecture and people; frustrating systems and service; incredibly complicated politics and truly memorable food (good and bad!). It’s left us with lots of think about, and is the antithesis of our next stop – New York City, home of capitalism and consumer-culture. We’ll keep you posted.