Zulueta: The Birthplace of Cuban Soccer
At Adela, the Remedios promotora and Robert, the film maker who we met after the caves, wait for us.
“The lunch is almost ready,” says the promotora, waving us towards a gazebo standing at the edge of a grassy area. “Find some shade and I’ll come get you.”
Craning our necks we look looking straight up at the smokestack of the mill, visible for miles and serving as a compass point as we walked the last few kilometers. What looks like the old Casa Mayoral stands across the grass from the gazebo.
Sitting under the gazebo offers some shade but the angle of the sun ignored the roof.
“Damn, it’s hot,” says Joel.
“It’s 11 o’clock,” I say. “We’re still in the first act.”
After lunch, Robert the cameraman walks with us to Zulueta. He wants to interview me on the way and get some footage of the trail.
Two kilometers of dust lead us to a busy crossroad where trucks pick up passengers and vendors sell fruits, garlic and whatever else they have to sell. We cross the asphalt into the expansive cane fields that stretch to the hills along the southern horizon. This is sugar cane country. Fields stretched as far as the eye can see in all directions. We enter a labyrinth of guardarayas through the canyons of cane and wind through them, keeping the hills to the south.
“There is a cave in those hills,” says Joel. “The cave of the ‘Visitantes.’ Apparently lots of people visit it,” he chuckles. “Straight up there.” It is a straight shot to the hills, with the sweet grass thick on our right.
“Do we have time to visit it?” he asks. I assure him we had all the time we need to visit this or any other cave on the way.
The mouth of the cave of the Visitantes faces us from the hillside as we shake free of the cane. A steep climb takes us to its mouth. Once at the mouth, another steep descent takes us inside the one large room of the cave.
“There is a cave in those hills,” says Joel. “The cave of the ‘Visitantes.’ It has a lot of visitors,” he chuckles. “Straight up there.” He points down the length of the guardaraya we are on. It is a straight shot to the hills, with the sweet grass thick on our right.
“For some reasons many local celebrities like to come to spend time here,” says Alexis once we’re inside. A large hammer and sickle under the initials URSS decorates one of the walls. The name Enrique Fortun with the date 1919 next to it is written in red paint on another wall. There was a certain Dr. Enrique Fortun, one of medical pioneers of Cuba, known for having conducted the first cesarean section on the island in 1901 (in honor of the event, the baby girl named Fortuna Cecarea Enriqueta). Could he have been one of the “visitantes?”
Back on the dirt road, we keep walking west. Beyond the fields of cane to the south, we can see the smokestack of the ingenio Chiquitico Fabregat, the old Ariosa mill where Esteban worked as a free-man, renamed after a martyred 26 of July revolutionary working clandestinely in Remedios. Small, scattered houses, gurgling with pigs and chickens, line the dirt road, facing the cane fields that stretch like a huge green lake to our right.
A local cultura worker waves to us as we approach the mill. We follow her into the one room Casa de Cultura at the edge of town where fruit juice and sandwiches await. Music from a boom box vibrates the building and serves as the accompaniment for a little girl dancing and singing to a pop tune evidently known, if all the lip-synching and clapping to the steady rhythm is any indication, to all in the room but me. Half the town crowd into or around the building, watching us through windows and door.
A tall guajiro in a straw hat waits for us outside. He straddles a bicycle.
“I’m your guide to Zulueta,” he announces. “An embarrassment of guides,” I say to Alexis and Joel.
***
Our guide of guides pushes his bike as he leads us down a beautiful dirt road lined with majestic and immense Palmas Reales (royal palms). We walk into Zulueta through its sport fields entrance. Our path cuts through three baseball diamonds and two soccer fields, something that I have not seen often on the island. Turns out that Zulueta considers itself ground zero for the development of soccer, futbol, in Cuba. “Zulueta, tu futobol es el Mejor,” reads the caption carved into a cement pedestal holding a soccer ball at the entrance of the Camilo Cienfuegos soccer field at the edge of town. Zulueta, has long been considered the cradle of Cuban soccer, with its home club, FC Villa Clara, boasting some 13-league title wins since 1980. (The documentary Gol de Cuba explores this in depth).
“It’s not competing with baseball yet,” says Alexis, “but it’s catching up. It is inevitable. We have many athletes. We’re outside all the time. It’s a new sport for a new era.”
Two dozen spectators dot the bleachers, periodically standing and yelling at the young men exhausting themselves in the Cuban sun.
At the Casa de Cultura, a half dozen teenage girls dressed in carnival outfits sit on the front steps waiting for us. They look bored. Talking to each other because that is what young girls dressed in carnival outfits do. In unison they glance our way as we round the corner. They stop talk for a split second in mid-sentence, as if posing for a photo. Then they look away and continue talking, totally disinterested. The local promotora, a tall, elegant woman claps her hands and calls the girls to their battle stations.
Inside, the promotora pulls a microphone on stage and officially welcomes us to Zulueta and begins the welcome by introducing a singer with a powerful voice, the teen age dancers who swivel and strut through their routine, and a historian who gives us a summary of the history of Zulueta. Halfway through the singer’s stage time, soft rain drops begin to drop as a warning of what’s coming. We all hustle to move the chairs under the roof covering the stage and the remainder of the show goes on. This was to be the only rain I saw felt during the two week walk.
We stand around making small talk for a few minutes after the show as the rain calms. A car waits to take us to the Casa de Protocolo, just south of town. I looked forward to exploring the town, but it is not to be. The Casa de Protocolo is in Taon, too far from the center of town.
A combination hotel and sports training facility, the Casa de Protocolo teases us with an olympic pool in the center of the complex. Sports terrains—basketball courts and 400-meter track—stretching just beyond the fence did not entice quite as much. A restaurant, public TV area and outdoor café provide the socializing spaces. The local organizer led us to the VIP compound, a series of rooms and facilities beyond the pool, not attached to the main sports unit. We eat quickly and settle into our rooms, ready to call it a day.
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