Walking to Viñas on the Tracks Zulueta Built
After passing a few houses, a path appears on the left, heading north. A blue house marks the turn. We soon find ourselves in the first forested area of the Camino so far. The leaves on the ground give the path an orange carpet that almost tricks you into feeling a crispness of a phantom autumn air. An amber hue smoothes the surfaces of tree trunks and blurs like tinted glass over the leaves on the ground. All green fades into the background as the orange spreads its glow from the ground to the trunks and higher. It has not rained in weeks but the moisture, or its memory, cools the air. And, to round out the change of scenery, we are walking uphill! A gentle slope that I swear makes my legs smile and my heart rate change gears into a faster tempo. I feel like I’m walking!
“This used to be a railroad line,” says Joel. We walk the line built by the mighty Julian Zulueta in 1877 to carry his sugar from his mill, Zaza, in Placetas to the port of Caibarien. The slight downhill slope, uphill to us, allowed the train full of cane to make it to the coast, spending no fuel for energy. The engines only needed enough fuel to carry the empty train back up the hill to Placetas, some thirty-six kilometers from the port. Zulueta, a Spaniard internationally linked to London and New York via trade networks, was also tightly linked to the Spanish government (his uncle was president of the Cortes and representative for Cadiz). He was a notorious slaver, who mounted his own slaving expeditions to provide labor for his mills. He had his comeuppance during the War of Independence when Gomez burned his prize possession, the Zaza, and freed all his slaves.