Day 2: San Antonio de las Vueltas

  

Vueltas

 

Esteban remembered Vueltas as the home of a certain bandit name Menendez who led the Spanish volunteer militia during the war against the Mambís.  The entire province of Las Villas teemed with bandits during the last decades of the 19^th Century.  Over sixteen sugar mills in the proximity to each other made the area attractive to marauders and rebels alike.  Most bandits supported the rebels, and some were revolutionaries themselves.  Some were Robin Hood types, stealing from the wealthy Spaniards and giving to the poor criollos.  Others were just hoods, stealing and pillaging the old-fashioned way.  Esteban remembered some of them fondly. Aguero, who had the well-deserved reputation of being the biggest thief of them all, was one of the good guys, in that world of ethical ambivalence. He relentlessly sacked most of the well-to-do families of northern Las Villas. Rumor had it that he turned some of the loot over to General Maximo Gomez and other Mambí leaders to support the independence effort. Every inch of Cuba has stories that links its revolutionary past to its revolutionary present.  I walked into Vuelta, where the good bandits fed the first revolution, down its dusty streets, and headed for the Casa de Cultura across from the church.

El Purio to Vueltas: Part 2

Crossing the Sagua la Chica--Vueltas

Back on the trail, we cross the asphalt and head to a cluster of wooden houses along the road about fifty meters to the south.  The Sagua la Chica flows just beyond, through the bottom of a steep ravine.  We need to get to the other side.  Rafael leads us, saying that if the water is low enough, we can cross here and retake the dirt path on the other side.  If the water is too high and we cannot cross here, crossing over on the bridge on the Circuito del Norte, about two kilometers south, is the only option.   

We approach the small houses squatting in a semi-circle around an open plot of dirt and grass that could be confused for a courtyard. In the middle of the small clearing, a young man looks up from under the hood of a gleaming, unscratched, bright red 57 Chevy. 

“There’s a crossing here, right? Can it be crossed?” asks Rafael. 

“Yeah,” the man says, “you want to cross?” 

He looks at my walking sticks and, without a word, waves for us to follow. He leads us down the steep path through short grass and brambles down the bank to the river’s edge. 

A shallow crossing, carpeted with pebbles beneath the ripples, leads to a small shrub-filled island in the middle of the river. 

“It’s shallow on the other side too,” he says and wades in. He is barefooted and walks across like he is walking across a field of flowers. I take this as a good sign and removed my boots, handing my sticks to Rafael as he crosses in front of me. I step into the slow-moving stream. 

Camino del Cimarron Map

 Camino del Cimarron Map

Just a quick picture worth a thousand words. This is a map of the route that I walked to create the Camino del Cimarron. And here is a link to the University of Miami GIS page where the Camino first appeared, thanks to the assistance of Abe Parrish, the GIS guru of the UM libraries, and Dr. Martin Tsang, the facilitator of so many things in my life.

El Purio to Vueltas (30km): Part 1

El Purio-Puente de Pavon

Five o’clock arrives unusually early but I need no alarm. By 4:30 the soreness of my body makes itself known, squeezing my leg and shoulder muscles patiently, not like the rhythmic squeezing and releasing of a massage, but more like the relentless compression of a python or a maja, Cuba’s native constrictor. The body’s memory of the first day always presents itself as a heaviness and a soreness the next morning. There is a thick fatigue that lingers inside the body, as if your blood has turned into heated condensed milk, thick and totally disinterested in carrying out its task of supplying enough oxygen to the muscles to spark movement.  Can’t think about it. Just do it. I peel off the silk sleeping sack and swing my legs off the bed. The soles of my feet touch the cold tile. I have to pee.

El Purio: Night Time of Reflection

El Purio-Night Time

 My telephone shows no signal bars in the room but still holds enough of a charge for me to call Fabiana.  

I am spending the night at a training center for mill workers; La Casa del Azucarero. The sleeping quarters of the training center consists of three or four bunk filled rooms strung along a cement walkway. My room has six sets of bunk beds in close quarters jutting out from the walls left and right.  At the far end of the room the only door other than the entrance leads to a bathroom with one shower.

Night has arrived when I finish my shower and step outside to find that magical spot where something that would pass for a signal exists.

I listen intently to Fabiana, trying to get an update of the happenings on the home front. A quick hello and she cuts to the chase. 

"Your mother is going downhill. She’s calling the dog Sasha.” 

Sasha is my daughter’s name. My mother does not have dementia. On the contrary, her lucidity makes her very aware of her body’s decline. At ninety-five, she has stretched thin the resiliency of her body. Walking, painting, reading; all the activities she had once enjoyed daily are now things of the ever growing past, never again to be performed. Her remaining time is a slow crawl to the finish line, but she is doing all within her power to be tortoise-slow about it.