Day 1: Sagua la Grande to El Purio (38 km)…continued

Vitoria-Guayabo Cuartel

At the three-house hamlet known as Vitoria, we ask for directions again. Women look out of their front doors at the sight of a backpacker with two young men in street clothes with trepidation. Maykel approaches them, greeting them with a smile.

“No need to alarm them more than necessary,” he explains to me. Two güajiros working on their tractor nearby come to see what we need. Alejandro and I explain that we want to reach El Purio “por dentro.” Maykel returns, relaying the directions offered by the women. The güajiros overhear and disagree with the instructions passed on by the women.

“The first part here is easy,” says the tall, thin one with the hooked nose. “Just straight up this path,” he points up the path where we came in.

“But like you see, it disappears,” said the short thing one with the hooked nose, pointing and then hooking his arm around some imagined bend. “But it keeps going,” he said, “you just can’t see it from here.”

“Where did you say you want to go?” asked the first one.

“El Purio,” I say.

“Estan cercita,” said the second.

“Not that close,” said the first one.

Asking a campesino for directions unleashes a process – part memory, part history, part personal experience – which works on the face as if it were a hologram with a bad connection. Lips pursed, eyebrows arched, mouth show then hide teeth, forming silent words. Fingers dig at cheeks and jaws, as if trying to mold them more tightly to the skull. Our güajiros talk out a multitude of options, their eyes fixed on the path ahead as it disappeared into the brush. Their arms weave and cut through the imaginary manigua, the brush, as they think their way to El Purio “por dentro.” We wait patiently. They draw the route in the dirt, erasing it almost as fast as its scratched. After much thought, they agree.

“Head straight down this dirt road until you see an old stone well on the right,” directs one of them.

“An old Spanish well,” adds the other one. “Of those times.” 

“There, take the left fork,” says the first one. “Follow it past some houses. Some have pigs. Keep going until you enter the forest. You’ll be climbing then,” his hand chopping the air like a hatchet. “At the top of the hills is Guayabo Cuartel. You’ll be close to the main road when you climb down from Guayabo Cuartel. From there to the tienda (store) of Guayabo Cuartel is not far. El Purio is on the other side of the road.” 

We thank them and move out. Tractors had created the path we walk, with deep ruts corrugating the tall grass. A slow incline catches my legs’ attention. Within a few kilometers, we see the stone well and the fork the qüajiros had promised. These types of wells served Esteban as guideposts in his passage to freedom. They alerted him to the presence of farmers and settlements. “Pozos del tiempo de España,” said Esteban to Miguel. “Wells from the time of Spain.” The same words that the farmers had used. We keep to our left.

***

After climbing for a while, we reach a rusted metal gate. Beyond it we see a simple wooden house surrounded by some beautiful, huge, otherworldly boulders, grey and smooth, as if polished by some giant and placed carefully to mark the summit of a hill. A dog barks from a hidden distance. A woman walks from the house and spots us leaning on the gate.

“Señora, una pregunta,” yells Maykel, waving. We have a question.

She looks hesitant, staring at us as if we are aliens.

“Buscamos Guayabo Cuartel,” he adds when we have her attention.

“This is Guayabo Cuartel,” she says when close enough not to have to yell.

“We are trying to go to the road from here,” explains Maykel. “Going to El Purio.”

She hushes the dogs as she reaches the gate.

 “If you go down that other path,” she points behind us. “The one heading down. The tienda is near.” She looks us over and seems to decide we are safe. “Or, come through here. Come through our property.” She opens the gate. “You have to be careful here,” she says.  “Some people might take advantage of us being so isolated. We have to be careful,” she explains.

Looking north from the top of the grassy knoll, we see the top of palms and a green, ruffled canopy reaching out to the horizon. She points down the slope beyond the house.

“Go down that way. You’ll run into a path. Once you reach it, take a right.”

As we are about to thank her, a severe looking güajiro rounds the corner of the house. He is tall and has a walking staff in one of his hands that he can probably handle as well as any sensei can handle a bo. He does not look pleased.

 “Fernando,” says the woman, excited but also aware that Fernando is not a happy camper, “they’re following a trail of a cimarrón. Come tell them about ours.”

Maykel, Carlos Alejandro, and I look at each other, all thinking, “these folks have a cimarrón? How can you even ‘have’ a cimarrón since he becomes a cimarrón when he runs away?”

Fernando is a strong man. Tall and solid like the grey boulders behind us. Dressed all in brown from head to toe, he wears pants tucked inside dark brown waterproof boots, and a shirt that matches the pants’ deep brown color with their rumor of orange. His straw hat has the shape of a cowboy hat but with frayed edges. Years of sweat has stained the straw a rich deep brown. He wears the earth he works on.

“What are you looking for?” he mutters, unsmiling. He squints at us, looking us over suspiciously. He continues before we can offer an answer. “Have to be careful these days. Someone comes in with some excuse and then runs off with the house. Delinquentes te roban.” Delinquents will rob you.

“I can’t run far with this backpack, don’t worry. And when you add the weight of the house. Oof! Que va. You’d catch me soon enough.” This makes the woman laugh. The tension lifts.

“They’re following the path of a cimarrón,” she says again. “Tell him about our cimarrón.”

He holds his staff as if it is an extension of his body. His third leg. Still as a statue, he explains, “We used to have one...my family did. Years and years ago. We caught him, though, and chained him to a well down below. Do you mention Pedro Yáñez in your story?” he asks us.

“No,” says Maykel. “Who is that? Can I record you?” Without waiting for a proper answer, Maykel takes out his phone from his pants pocket. I sit on a rock in the shade with Carlos Alejandro, playing with two timid puppies. One rolls on his back, offering his belly like a banjo waiting to be strummed. We listen to the story.

“Pedro Yáñez, an ancestor of mine who owned this property back in the 19^th Century, had slaves. Four or five women and a couple of men. The property was pretty much the same, maybe bigger, going down to the road. I think he had some sugar down in the flat lands and tobacco up here. Two of his men took off one day and became cimarrones together. Yáñez figured they’d head to some palenque nearby, but they didn’t even get that far. Yáñez and his crew caught them and beat them until blisters bubbled on the skin of their ancestors back in Africa.” He does not smile at this attempt at humor, but keeps on with his story, as if channeling his ancestor.

 “They tied them up at a stone well down there,” he motions with his chin. “Shackled them by the ankle and had them pull water out of the mill below all day. They pulled water up from the well all day and all night if needed. Water headed to La Central Dos Amigos.” He pauses, “I think they died that way. Not sure. Pedro Yáñez was my great grandfather. I’m Fernando Yáñez.”

Another woman walks from the house towards us carrying a tray with cups. The culture of hospitality spans the island. No matter how poor a household may be, guests can expect to feel the full weight of Cuban hospitality in the form of a Cuban woman with the necessary equipment to make lemonade. She offers the paper cups with surprisingly cold, freshly squeezed sweetened lemonade.

“Is it cold enough?” she asks.

“Marvelous,” I say after sipping the first of the tiny sips, intent on making these cups last as long as possible.

“How are things there?” She asks. “In Miami. Hard to make a living, no? My son is in Hialeah. Works two jobs. He has no time for anything else, he says.” She shakes her head and adds, “he hates that he can’t walk anywhere. Not even to the store. And hates driving too, but the city is built for cars, he says. It’s not good for people. Is all that true? He usually doesn’t complain much about things, so I’m worried. Has not been able to come home to visit yet. Too busy. But he will this year. He promised.” She shakes her head and looks at the story teller as he finishes his tale of the family cimarron. “We’re ok here. Plenty of food. Quiet. Too quiet for him.” She’s talking about her son. “We thought we had enough. But he felt caged in. He wanted more.”

***

We say our goodbyes to the women and walk with Fernando down the grassy slope past the house to a shaded stone well at the edge of the woods, where he said his great grandfather forced the unsuccessful cimarrones to hoist water until they could no longer do so.

“This is where they had them,” he says. We still get water from this well. Good water.” The mouth of the well is covered with two wood slats hinged in the middle. A three-foot brick foundation elevates the opening, creating a square bench around the round hole.

“They tied them up. Shackled them here,” he says pointing to the edge of the foundation. “You can see here where the shackles were anchored into the stone. See the rust?” He stands unmoving, both hands on his staff, next to the well. His eyes stare at nothing in particular as he talks.

“I think they died that way; chained to the well. They stood right where I’m standing. It’s shady at least. I think it was shady back then too. It was a long time ago.” Then he comes back to the present and gestures down the hill.

“To get to where you’re going, you need to keep going down that way and you’ll reach the dirt road leading past the tienda.”

I stay a few steps behind, breathing in the landscape as Maykel and Carlos Alejandro work their way down the gentle slope. This is not Havana. This is a part of Cuba hidden from view, far from the minds of those who wish the worse for the people of the island. This is the Cuba less travelled, except, of course, for those who know it; those who live this life and would not trade it for any other. How bad is this life, really, up here in Guayabo Cuartel? Food is local and relatively plentiful. The politics of Havana or Washington are foreign as well; something that happens far away, could be on another planet. To choose between here and Hialeah might be a hard choice for some. Or maybe not.