The End at the Beginning: Havana

Hogar del Veterano-Havana

In 1960 Esteban lived in Havana. He turned 100 years old that year, on December 26, the day of San Esteban, in the Hogar del Veteranos. 

A day after riding into Havana, Lazaro and I arrived early at the Hogar. This is where Miguel interviewed Esteban for two years before publishing the book that we celebrate. The building is well kept. It looks freshly painted and landscaped.  I mention this to Lazaro.  "Yeah. Now." he said. "I came to check it out a couple of weeks ago. The place looked like shit. This is the new paint job and landscaping. The director is very happy. You'll meet her." 

A crowd of Reporters cluster outside. Camera people fidget with their equipment. The old veteranos, dressed in green shirts and brown pants, wander around. Those who can. Many simply sit in their folding chairs or wheelchairs along the walls of the entrance room. Some short of limbs. Some with tired looks on their faces. Others smiling broadly at Lazaro. All of them long on time. Not too worried that we are, true to form, running late.

Miguel arrives and everyone is part of the welcoming committee. 

We hug. "You're done with your wild project?" he asks in English. 

"I hope that this is just the beginning of an even wilder future for the Camiono," I respond.

"I hope so too," he says.

We walk inside together, signing the guest book at the door.

 On a bench inside are pictures of Esteban and Miguel together, when the latter had hair. The pictures were framed for the occasion, meant to be nailed into the wall of the entrance hall after we leave. One picture is of Esteban standing next to the tree where the two met for the first time. 

Miguel and I work our way to the front of the room, microphones and all the eyes aimed at us. Miguel starts and lauds the project and, grabbing my left arm, says, “And this man, who is extremely forceful and robust, we have to thank him.” 

After the applause, he looks and with a short bow, passes, “la palabra,” the word, to me. I rambled.

“This is where it all started over fifty years ago,” I say as cameras whirr. This event will be televised on Cuban TV this evening. “This is where an individual’s life became a metaphor for struggle and liberation. This is where Miguel Barnet and Esteban Montejo met, talked and became friends. The rest, as they say, is history. 

    “When I started my walk, I knew that I was undertaking an adventure. Tracing the steps of the last living Cuban Cimarron. Walking through sugar fields, into caves, through fields that used to vibrate under the hoofs of Mambí horses. Seeing Cuba “por dentro.” Tracing the steps of a man immortalized by this man, whose work has received international recognition because of it captures what it means to be Cuban.” I place my hand on Miguel’s shoulder. “When I started the walk, it was as much an intellectual endeavor as a physical one. I wanted to link the biography of Esteban with the geography of Cuba. Remember that he was Cuban before there was a Cuba. He was one of the thousands of warrior midwives who helped Cuban be born.  In so doing, he became Cuban. So I wanted to make a trail that commemorated this incredibly significant life that represents the hundreds of thousand lives that have not been captured in literature.

“But in the process, I learned much about myself and about Esteban. What he saw. What he must have felt running for his life, unsure where the running would lead.  I realized how much like Esteban we all are, really. We are all born, linked to a place, a geography. We adopt that geography as part of our identity. What other option do we have? Our lives, our biographies are shaped by the specific historical period that welcomes us. We don’t choose it, necessarily. Sometimes, like in my case, others chose it for us, the period and the place from which we’ll draw our identity.  But I learned too that others may choose our path but it is still us that has to walk it. And anytime we set foot to path, we can choose where it will take us. We have to own our path. We need to move in this world with purpose, a purpose that we establish, even if not the one foreseen by those who would choose our path. We need to leave a trace on this planet. This journey, the traces that we leave, make us who we are. Esteban Montejo lived a heroic life. Many of you have as well. Esteban had Miguel to make him famous, but his life was his life, with or without Miguel. You have lived a life for Cuba that I can only respect and admire. You share with Esteban a love for independence, a love for Cuba. I have my role in Esteban’s life as well now.  Walking the path, I also realized that I am Cuban, but I am not as Cuban as you.” 

Some veteranos and Miguel say, “No! That’s not true.” 

“No, it is true and its ok,” I continue. “And that is just. That is right. And that is true. And what is true,” I say looking at Miguel, “can’t be sad.” 

“We all have our role to play. I am Cuban but I am also ‘Americano’ a ‘gringo Cubano,’ as one of my Remedios friends called me. Esteban was Cuban and a slave. We all have to recognize how history shapes our biography. How to live a meaningful life in the time that is given us--that is our responsibility. The life of Esteban has helped me link my life to your history. And for this I thank him. And I thank Miguel. And I thank you, the veterans of Cuba and the stories of your lives, stories just as powerful and meaningful as Esteban’s story, because your stories link you to this land, at this time in history. To this revolutionary project, a project, one of my young guides reminded me, that is a beautiful project to pursue. Your life has been defined by your love of your geography and you have given meaning to the hills and valleys of our country. Thank you, thank you Miguel, and thank you Esteban, wherever you are. For a few weeks you have lent me your machete, and that is all that I’ve needed.”

Day 12: Cienfuegos

 Cienfuegos

After a quick shower, I meet Orlando in the courtyard again.  We walk across the Parque Marti to a local restaurant for lunch. A nice space facing the park, carved out of a central courtyard of an old house. Some kind of net covering the open-air mutes the sunlight and its heat.  The cast iron tables and chairs give it a lean, clean look. 

The president of the Benny More museum, who I met at the Casino Congo in Lajas, also happens to be eating lunch. 

He approaches, shakes hands, and reiterated his interest in the Camino. “I think that if we can make it known, it will help us all,” he says.   

He introduces me to his guest, a representative from Cubanacan, a Cuban travel agency.  “This project should be a tourist itinerary,” he says to her after explaining a bit with my help.  

She listens patiently and nods.  

“Sounds fascinating but, so you know, we go where we know we can have good results,” she says, meaning that Cubanacan will take tourists where they can spend money. “Where we can get a good response from the locals. Where the locals can offer something unique.”  

The museum director interrupts. “There is nothing more unique that what Grenier just did.” 

“Yes. Agreed,” she says. “And we’ll be on board as soon as it becomes economically feasible.” The word in Spanish is “rentable.” As soon as we can make money on the deal, we’ll be there, she assures.  

Day 12: Palmira-Cienfuegos

Palmira—Cienfuegos

 

A dozen stars persevere in the cloudless cobalt blue sky. Asley and Yorgani, waited below as I clanged and bounced my way down the spiral staircase at six a.m.  I recognize Yorgani from the welcome as the one they call “El Enano.” – “the midget.” 

“So, you know the way, Enano.” 

He laughs. I don’t think strangers usually call him by his nickname. Our flashlights lead the way down the street. 

“Never been all the way to Cienfuegos por dentro but we can figure it out. Put your backpack on this bike. We’ll take turns pushing it.” 

I hoist it on top of the bicycle seat and take first push. 

“Ok,” I ask, “so what’s the plan?” 

The plan is to work our way through the cane fields and back roads for about twelve kilometers until we hit the main road into Cienfuegos at Canta Rana.  There, my buddy, Orlando, waits and I would become the responsibility of the Cienfuegos city contingent.  Whether I would go back into the bush to enter the city or walk in down the main drag was yet to be determined.  All that I know was that I will walk into Cienfuegos today. The final push.

Day 11 (cont.): Palmira

Palmira

The square of Palmira is a spacious, gleaming public space. It has few trees so it is not a place to go for shade but its soft pastel color in the bright blue day made the heat bearable.  We skirted the plaza heading past the bici taxis and the cafes and bars and restaurants and kiosks and line of consumers waiting their turn, down to the first Cabildo, la Sociedad de Cristo Babalu Aye/San Lazaro, a long, freshly painted pink stucco building at the end of the street with red and white wooden posts supporting the equally long front porch.  The director knocks on the white door. I stand a few feet back.  Felipe Capote Sevilla, the president of the sociedad answer.  The museum director warned me that he was not the most sociable of men, taciturn and serious looking but not to let that bother me. 

“He’s that way with everybody,” she said.

Day 11: Palmira. Where Orishas live

Day 11: Palmira. Where Orishas Live.

The car stops in front of the museum, a beautiful 19^th Century building with a cozy and verdant central courtyard. The director comes out through one of the doors, big smile on her tall dark frame.  After the perfunctory peck on the cheek, she gives me a tour, explaining the exhibits, while an assistant hovers nearby in case she needed support. 

The museum contains exhibit of the cruel hardware that deformed the bodies and identity of the slaves during the 19^th Century.  Manacles, cruel collars with spikes, unforgiving shackles for the ankles.  These are the torture tools which awaited Esteban after his apprehension the first time he escaped. 

Day 11: Ciego Montero to Palmira

Ciego Montero—Palmira

 

The next morning the young woman who signed me in the night before is still on duty. 

“You live here, or what?” I say, putting my backpack down by the front desk. The entire front of the building is made of glass so I can see down the long driveway all the way to the road. No sign of my ride; no lights slicing through the darkness yet and it is almost 6 a.m. A stray dog sleeps curled up right outside the glass doors. 

“Seems that way,” she says. “Going home today. Twenty-four-hour shifts. Want some coffee?” 

“Always,” I say. She disappears into the dark hallway and returns with some delicious black morning gold. 

Carbajal and the driver arrive before I started my predictable, introspective pissed-off rant about Cubans always being late. 

“Just in time,” I smile, when they roll up parallel to the curb. I throw my backpack into the trunk and we are off. 

Six members of the original welcoming committee wait to see me off from the Casona. Carbajal’s mother consumes me in a bear-like hug.

 “You have your house here. Whenever you want.” she says. “Don’t forget us.” 

Ciego Montero-Part 2

Ciego Montero-Part 2: Talking Shit to the People

The theatre, next door to La Casona, is also one of the most popular public spaces in town.  The director, introducing himself at the door, explained how every day some event takes place within these walls, be it a film or a poetry reading, a dance or a musical performance. Always free and open to the public.  This afternoon the theatre had one of its rare closings because of a presentation in my honor. The Grupo Folklorico, a group of dancers and musicians consisting of practitioners of Afro-Cuban religion who live in town, were scheduled to perform for me and my friends.  He leads me inside.

The theatre reminded me of the small movie house in Gainesville, Georgia where I would escape to see the lives of others. It was a good place to be by oneself without feeling alone. There I saw Romeo and Juliet and fell in love with Oliva Hussey and found out that I could cry to Shakespeare as the soundtrack by Henry Mancini made me feel the very loneliness I was trying to escape. Memories of those times seem to teleport randomly to wherever I am and stand in front of me, waiting to be bumped into.

The ticket booth out front is flanked by two doors which open to the semi-circle walkway that lead to the right and left of the large sitting area in the middle.  The seats, hard and folding tight against the back, welcome about one hundred rear ends. My welcoming committee members and the regional assistant director of Cultura from Cienfuegos, the thin black man who I had met in Potrerillo, sit in the first two rows. A few invited visitors are scattered behind.  Carbajal stands in front of the elevated stage and introduces the “young artists” who have come from Oriente, eastern Cuba and have overcome much to be here today.  

“The show is a tribute to their religious traditions,” he says. “I’ll let them show you what they have.” 

Day 10 (continued): Ciego Montero

Ciego Montero

The smooth terraplén screams to be walked on. One huge guardarraya between walls of cane, broken only by brightly colored wooden houses and their simple yards. Garlic grows in this region as well, and dozens of houses are overrun by battalions of the brown tufts.   

In Ciego, the mule stops at the edge of town, near a park that had the air, by its clean statue of Jose Marti and well-trimmed bushes, of being an important part of town.  My handler walks with me half a block to a wooden house with a sign flat on the wall next to the door announcing it as La Casona, a private home that served as the town art gallery and community center. 

Fotografía de Julio Larramendi

I have always associated the town with the spring which produced the most popular bottled water and soft drinks on the island, the Ciego Montero brand.  And this is the only reason why most Cubans would ever know about this small town which geographically is tied at the hip with the adjacent town of Arriete.  Arriete-Ciengo Montero has approximately four and a half thousand residents.  Ten of them welcome me to the town. 

Day 10 (continued): Santa Isabel de las Lajas

Santa Isabel de las Lajas

The settlement of Santa Isabel de las Lajas dates to 1800 but it was officially founded in 1824.  Esteban settled in the town after the war and took part in the 1912 black revolt protesting the exclusion of blacks from national political culture. He lived in Lajas at the same time as Coronel Simeon Armenteros and other members of the Partido Independiente de Color, the national party leading the revolts.  Most of the violence of the uprising took place in eastern Cuba, around Santiago, but a few bands of Independentistas stirred the pot in the Province of Santa Clara; one band attacked the northern region around Sagua la Grande and the other, led by Armenteros attacked the communication infrastructure of Cienfuegos between May and July 1912.  Estaban was in this group. The uprising was quickly crushed. Esteban survived to tell the tale.[1]

If there was ever a man who loved what he did and where he did it, it is the director of the Benny Moré museum in Lajas.  

Day 10: Cruces-Lajas-Ciego Montero

Cruces—Lajas—Ciego Montero

 

Electricity came first to Santa Clara. Right into the city. The philanthropist Marta Abreu brought it. It didn’t come to the Ariosa until…well, I don’t remember, but it was after the Caracas mill. Caracas brought in electric light in that area of Lajas. In the biggest mill in Cuba. The owners were millionaires, and that was why they bought the electricity. Their name was Terry. I don’t know where I was, up in a tree or on top of a roof. But I saw the lights of the Caracas mill, which were a marvel. 

--Esteban Montejo

 

It must have been the water. I boil with internal heat even before I toss my mattress on the floor hoping to find the coolest spot in the big room. My efforts are to no avail. The fever sucks up the feeble breeze of the fan like a black hole sucks up light. The absurd dreams begin as soon as I close my eyes. 

And then there were the shits. 

I stagger in a stupor to the bathroom five or six times, wobbling between the theatre seats each time, and each time leaving behind more body weight than the time before. This continues until thereias nothing left inside of me. 

After the third or fourth visit to the bathroom, I stop cursing the darkness and am glad that I can’t see what I leave behind. I perform the laborious flushing duties the first couple of times, but by the third and fourth forays, I abandon my waste to fester in the darkness. I know I will return. 

Day 9 (continued): Reality Check in Cruces

Reality Check in Cruces

The room is warm. Real warm. Sweating while sitting perfectly still warm. The window leading to the side street is sealed shut for some unfathomable reason.  Without the fan, the room would be impossible. Looking for the bathroom, I explore the building.

Behind the theatre stage are the restrooms. Or I should say, is the restroom. Unisex. Uni-able. One bathroom with three stalls, none of which flush, or have lids on the toilets or doors on the stalls to enclose them. And there is no light in the bathroom.  So, using it requires, first, that your eyes become accustomed to the seamless darkness. If you manage locate one of the three stalls, guess the location of the bowl, and aim properly, you might not add to the novel life forms nurtured by the green-yellow swamp surrounding the base of the bowl. If you felt the socially conscious urge to flush, there is a bucket on the floor by the entrance which needs to be dumped into the toilet. The last person to use it did not bother to fill it, the tap being some distance away in another room.

Day 9 (continued): Mal Tiempo-Cruces

 Mal Tiempo-Cruces

After touring the plaza with Maipu and Aniel, we enter the motel. Cookies and a cold drink wait for us. Elias, the manager welcomes us.  After I summarize the project, he offers to give me a tour.  

“We have nine large rooms with the capacity for forty-five people.  It’s not the Hilton but we receive people year-round. Groups of tourists, but mostly school trips or national organizations.” He points to the work area at the end of one wing. “As you can see, we’re renovating.” 

He tells me how back in the day, when the Baños de Bija were functioning, the motel would be full of guests. 

“A little bus would stop right out front and take visitors to the baths and bring them back later. A bus from Cruces stopped here too on the way to los Baños.”  

Outside, we say goodbye to Aniel.  The promotora probably wished that she could join him, but she silently resigned herself to her fate, accompanying me to the Mal Tiempo sugar mill through the shrub.   

We work our way around a fence to the south of the monument and head towards the smokestack sprouting in the distance. It is hot as hell by now.  Waves of heat rise from the sandy flatland, making the palms in the distance undulate, like some tropical Van Gogh creation. Maipu wraps a long sleeve shirt around her head in a makeshift turban and we weave through the scrub brush. The terrain reminds me of the high mesas in the Southwestern part of the United States. I half expect to see a sagebrush blowing past us, had there been any wind.

Day 9: Walking to Mal Tiempo

 Mal Tiempo

 Mal Tiempo was necessary to give courage to the Cubans and to give strength to the revolution. Anyone who fought there left convinced he could face the enemy….Maceo was certain of victory. He was tougher than a hardwood tree. 

--Esteban Montejo

Night falls softly in this area of the flatlands.  Buses emptying workers into the dusty streets, tilting with the weight of the passengers pouring out the same side. Men stand on the sidewalks or leaning against walls rehashing the day’s news. Walkers hurry somewhere important.  This corner is the crossroads of the town.  Men sit on the wall of the Casa de Cultura facing the street or stand facing those who are, telling stories, gesturing wildly, well into the night.  It was the town crier corner.  I sit on the porch and watch the town breathe.  

Around eight I get ready for bed.  I decide against sleeping on the sofa and lay out my mat, lining up the two available fans to deliver what passes for coolness all over my body.  As I’m getting my toiletries in order, I see a large, muscular man open the gate from the street and walk towards the open front door.  

“Aquí no hay nadie,” I say. There’s nobody around.  

“I know,” he says. “I’m the night watchman,” El sereno. 

They are the only words he says to me all night. He makes the rounds in silence, which in the case of the one room building means looking around, checking the back door, inspecting from afar the few furnishings, opening the second door facing the street at the other end of the front porch and taking the keys from their hanging place above the phone.  He takes a chair from around the folding table and places it outside, under the roof at the corner of the property, facing the crossroads and the crier’s corner. He sits and looked out into the street, saying not another word to me. 

            I sleep on the floor as well as could be expected. Sometime near dawn, a loud snoring wakes me up. The sereno asleep on the sofa. I am glad that I had left it for him.

Day 8 (cont.): Potrerillo side trip

 
Walking to  la Casa de Tejas

Back at the The Potrerillo promotora tells me about the activities awaiting me.  No dancing girls. No comedy routine.  A lunch with her family and a shower at her house whenever I was ready.  In the afternoon, she recommends a walk up the road to a house, in ruins but worth the visit, where Antonio Maceo and the other Mambí generals met to strategize the assault on Mal Tiempo.  

“It’s called La Casa de las Tejas. (the House of Roof Tiles) It is only a kilometer or so down the road. Raul will take you.”  

Later in the afternoon, after a delicious and ample lunch and a shower in a bathroom with first-world water pressure and blue tiles on the walls, I walk with Raul to Las Casas de las Tejas. He assures me it is a two-kilometer walk. Most people are not good judges of distance.  Long distance walkers have an advantage in estimating distances, usually conceived as a linear concept, because we have the combination of space (multidimensional) and time to work with.    Hills speed up time and diminish the space that we cover.  On flat land we can air it out, shrinking time and expanding space.  In the final analysis, our pace is our fate and we play games in our head trying to predict the future.  

But mere mortals are more prone to error when calculating distances. So, when Raul said that the Casa de Tejas sat no more than two kilometers away, I cut him some slack and thought the distance might be a bit more; say three kilometers.  Still, I can only blame myself for wearing flipflops on what turned out to be an eleven-kilometer round trip to the ruins. Had he mentioned that the house was near Lomitas, I would have prepared differently. Lomitas is a town south of Potrerillo where the Maceo’s entourage stopped on its way to Mal Tiempo.  The initial route through Manicaragua and Barajagua would have passed through Lomita and entered Potrerillo from the south. It did not dawn on me that the Casa de Tejas was that stop. Was it worth the walk? The house is in ruins. Its significance is not evident. No architectural badge of honor on the wall identifying this as a historic place.  No tribute to the Mambí warriors.  But, yes, it is worth the walk.  La Casa de Tejas was the center of the universe for Maceo, Gomez, Esteban and the other men thinking of Mal Tiempo as perhaps the last place where they would breathe Cuban air.  These walls in ruins at one-time protected rebel forces as the leaders planned their strategy. 

“Nearby,” says my guide as we stand in the ruins of La Casas de Las Tejas, “is Los Mangos, where they camped before the assault. Want me to take you?” 

“How near?” I ask. 

“Oh,” he thinks it over. “Maybe a couple of kilometers.” 

“No thanks,” I say. “I don’t have the shoes for it.” 

Walking back to town, out of the blue, he asks, “Do you read the bible?”  

In all my decades traveling Cuba this is the first time that anyone has posed this question. 

I pause before answering. 

“I’ve read the bible. But something tells me that probably not like you have read the bible,” I smile. 

“I’m a Christian,” he says, using the broad evangelical terminology for what is really a very specific form of Christianity. “We have a group of us that regularly get together to read the bible and discuss it.  We’re part of the Hermanos en Cristo church. Our pastor travels frequently to the U.S. to talk and to meet people, gather resources. I’d say we have over two thousand groups in Cuba; throughout the island. We’re growing.”

 

As soon as he identifies himself as a “Christian,” I anticipated some sort of contact with U.S. evangelical imperialism.  Too strong a word? Perhaps. But the Evangelicals see in Cuba and other countries in Latin America fertile ground to expand their charismatic beliefs.  In Cuba, I’ve seen evangelical churches from Baracoa to Bayamo, from the Bay of Nipes to El Cobre, and their numbers are growing. 

Back in town, I resume my daily quest to discover a geographic location associated with a decent cell phone signal.  

My escort to the Casa de Tejas suggests a visit to a house that has “the best connection in town.”  

“The family has a son in the States. He has them wired with technology that increases the signal,” he says. “I’m sure that they will let you use the connection to call your wife.”

On a side street a few blocks away from the CC stands a yellow and white 1955 Dodge Coronet Lancer hardtop all pimped out and gleaming like a jewel in the dusty street.  This car in Havana would make the driver a favorite of European tourists and a fortune if seen by a U.S. collector.  I whistle when I see it. Raul smiles. 

“They have a son in the States.” As if to say, this is the inevitable consequence of having a son in the States. 

We call out, knock on the door and when no one answers, Raul calls a woman’s name.  Around the side she came, drying her hands.  She looked to be in her late 40s or early 50s but age is hard to judge in Cuba. The hardships of maintaining a household and dealing with the general dysfunctional elements of daily life wear down women and men, but not equally. Women get the short end of the stick. Here there is no simple second shift as suffered by women in the States with housework after a long day at the office. Women in Cuba are always on the clock. Scavenging for hours to find the store with the chicken in stock, the eggs, the protein, cooking it when they bring it back home, making sure that the house is fit to live in in a dusty, windows-wide-open world. Then there are the people that inhabit this world that is so difficult to maintain. The husband, the kids. Hell, anyone getting by with two shifts trying to survive in this economy is considered lucky. Men aren’t in that great shape either. 

“Hola Raquel. Aquí tenemos un amigo que necesita una conexión buena para comunicarse con su familia en los Estados Unidos.” A friend needs a good connection to the States, he explains. 

“Entren. Sientense. Quieren café?” Come in, she says, want some coffee?

The house inside is as pimped out as the car. A 62-inch Samsung TV stands on an entertainment center a couple of meters across from a plush leather sofa.  Pictures of the kids, those portrait face shots that strive to give an angelic look to the little devils, and glass ornaments of animals decorate the top of wooden living room furniture.  High on the side wall next to the TV set is signal enhancer of some sort. Raul points it out. Whatever it is, I catch five bars on my phone for the first time since leaving Havana. I excuse myself to talk to Fabiana as the rest of the household members, a young woman and one old enough to be Raquel’s mother, carry on with their activities in the kitchen, undisturbed by the gringo speaking English in the living room.

My mother’s condition has worsened, and the end could come any day, Fabiana tells me. The precariousness of her situation weighs heavy on me. It has already influenced my decision to cut directly to Potrerillo rather than face the uncertainty of Manicaragua and Barajagua.  Now I realize I need talk to Lazaro about changing my ticket to return to Miami as soon as possible after arriving in Havana.  

I had planned a few days of decompression in Havana.  Entering the normal routines of life after a couple of weeks on the trail is a little like reentering the earth’s atmosphere after spending time in the International Space Station.  I wanted to regain my bearings, normalize the social although this walk had been atypical in its sociability.  But given my mother’s condition, I need to change the departure date to ASAP after arrival in Havana. 

  When done, I look for Raquel to say goodbye and find her in a small room on the side of the house doing laundry. Always working, these Cubans.

Day 8 (cont.): Potrerillo

Potrerillo

We enter Potrerillo from the east. The Caunao river flows calmly just south of us.  Jiandry passes me the backpack, dismounts, and walks the horse to a bright blue house right at the T-juncture where roads lead north to San Juan, south to town and Lomita and east back to Jorobada. The blue house belongs to his aunt, he tells me. I lean my bag against one of the posts holding up the wire fence where Jiandry tied the horse, and walk through the gate of the small, picture-perfect front yard full of small red and yellow flowers and bushy greenery.  

The aunt comes out to greet us, drying her hands on a small towel.  She waves us in. Jiandy is a light-skinned man. His aunt is a dark mulata full of energy and so happy to see her nephew. 

“Passen, passen. Hay niño, how long has it been?” 

“A week?” he laughs.  The small entrance room soothes my eyes with its light blue paint.  I feel the coolness as soon as I walk in. She hustles to the back and we sit in two rockers. Her tiny son, around two years old, walks from the kitchen focusing on the two glasses of cold water in his hands as if they were birds about to fly away.  

Day 8: Mataguá to Potrerillo Part 1

Matagua-Potrerillo

 

Samuel is no longer sure about walking with me. 

“My back,” he complains, “It’s very stiff. Can’t bend.” 

He mentions that a cane tractor, one of those ancient U.S. manufactured contraptions older than the Revolution, that carries the cane waste (bagazo) to the mill, is leaving at six, conveniently from right in front of his house. 

“It can drop us at a crossroad close to Jorobada. We’ll still have to walk but not as much. I’ll be fine for sure then.” His hip is giving him trouble as well, he adds. Makes it tougher to move. His back problem has affected his walking gait and his knee was throwing his hip off kilter. But he adds quickly, if I want to walk, he is ok to walk with me. If I want to. 

The ride on the American-built cane tractor loosens my fillings. There are no shock absorbers on these things and the wheels are solid rubber, not air-filled tires like on a tractor. Nothing about the design is meant to comfort riders. We stand on a metal grate which sticks like a stiff lip out the front of the trailer being pulled by the tractor. Riding on a vibrating iron cow, on the dirt road winding through the cane fields, which would have been a pleasure to walk, is an organ-shaking affair. A danger to all fleshy portions of my mouth. 

Day 7 continued: Mataguá

 Mataguá

The town reminds me of an old-west settlement. Flat faced buildings with verandas facing wide dusty streets.[1]The Casa Cultural is a grandiose, early 20^th Century mansion with majestic, sculpted columns holding up the ceiling of spacious main room leading to a central courtyard through the rear. One small card table with three folding chairs around it near the front door furnishes the entire cavernous room.  Two cultura workers, a young woman whose name I miss, and Samuel, the man who will be my host for the evening, elegant in a white shirt and beige pants. 

“You must be hungry and tired,” says the young woman.  “You can go eat with Samuel at the restaurant.  The Manicaragua leaders will be here in a little while. They were waiting for you.”  

I quickly recount our day of waiting and she listens as if she cares but the weariness of her eyes betray disinterest.  “They’ll explain. Go eat.”

Day 7: Guaracabulla-Matagua

Guaracabulla-Matagua

 

There is very little light in the casa cultural of Guaracabulla. The only light bulb worthy of the name shines in the main room, near the front door. The bathroom, next to the room with the mattress, is dark as a cave. The black mass of a large tank filled with water rose between the sink and a flat floor with a drain near the wall; what passes for a shower in Cuba. I “showered” throwing water from the tank on myself with a small cup. The splashing surprising the skin without forewarning from the eyes. Peeing in the toilet during the night was a challenge, not that a few drops outside the bowl would be noticeable. Flushing meant pulling water out of the tank into the toilette with a larger bucket. Nevertheless, it was, as they say, all good. I surface from the blackness with plentiful sleep and ready to roll at six. 

The promotora had brought me a thermos full of coffee the night before. Drinking coffee like this now – as I awake with the morning, in a small town in the center of Cuba, prepared specially to send me on my way through the Cuban countryside – makes it taste like ambrosia. I pull my pack to the front porch, breathing in the cool morning air. 

Day 6 Part 2: Placetas to Guaracabulla

Walking to Guaracabulla; the Geographic Center of Cuba

The date associated with the Triunfo de la Revolución, the Triumph of the Revolution, is January 1, 1959. Many people imagine the bearded rebels marching into Havana on New Year’s Day, welcomed by the jubilant throngs. The date and the triumph, however, have more to do with events that took place along these cane fields and guardarayas on New Year’s Eve, 1958. Che Guevara and his troops overwhelmed the forces of Batista in Santa Clara, the city about thirty kilometers to the west of Placetas. Che took Placetas on December 22, 1958 and Remedios on Christmas Day, 1958. He regrouped in Placetas and asked his cartographer to find a route to Santa Clara “por dentero,” not on the main roads leading to the city. It is certain that his route crossed the path that we blazed today. His troops moved in the direction of Sabana, a small town north west of Placetas.  If he took no main road to get to Sabana, his guerrilleros could not avoid tramping along the same cane fields, crossing the same railroad lines and seeing the same palm trees that my two friends and I encountered today. It is easy to imagine their rifled trudging through these back roads, cheered on by the parents of our direction givers today. The old lady who served us good lemonade and bad information was a child then. Maybe she watched open mouthed as Che went by, hopeful or fearful of what lay ahead. 

***

The van takes us to the center of Placetas.  The Casa de Cultura stands across from the shady park that offered a particularly inviting welcome to the town. It seems like an enjoyable place to lay in the shade and spend some time after a long day walking.   This would be a good layover for walkers tired of small towns.  Placetas is not a metropole but with 72,000 people, it can sustain a more diverse social life than the small towns so far encountered on the route. With several private and state-run restaurants, a hotel or two, and neighborhoods to explore, it makes for a good lay-over town. 

Day 6: Zulueta to Guaracabulla: The Geographic Center of Cuba--Part1 Placetas

Zulueta-Placetas: On our Way to Guaracabulla, the Geographic Center of Cuba

 

The morning rushed up on us during sleep about the same time it always does. Too damn early. 

“The muchachos are not here yet?” the promatora asks, referring to Maykel and Carlos Alejandro. My two friends had agreed to meet us in Zulueta and guide us into Guaracabulla, the geographic center of Cuba and Carlos Alejandro’s hometown. We stand on the road heading out of the Casa de Protocolo. She just rolled up in her Lada to say goodbye and to give Joel, Alexis and the kids a ride back to Remedios.

“They are on their way, pidiendo botella, hitchhiking, from town,” I say. 

“Ah,” she says. “That must have been them that we passed. The one with a hat and the other one with the baseball cap.” 

“Yeah. Maykel always wears a straw fedora hat,” I nod. 

She gives the driver instructions to go pick them up.

I say goodbye to Alexis and the crew. I give them all something to remember me: the twins smile wide when I handed them each a pair of biking gloves that I had packed in case I needed help gripping my hiking poles. Alexis and Joel object to receiving 50 CUC each but then shift to thanking me when it becomes obvious that I am not going to take it back. 

"We’re leaving you in good hands, it seems,” says Alexis.

“Se te quiere, Alexis.” I say. Gracias por todo.” They head back to a life of little resources and much work. This walk had been a vacation for them.