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.  

Walking into El Purio--The Welcome Part 2

 Guillermo brought me this gallo all the way from Sagua!

The indoor activities finished and I thought my time had come. The next stop would be a shower and a bed. I was wasted.  But the best part was yet to come. The promotora from Sagua takes my arm and leads me to the center of the park. 

“Just one more thing,” she says almost apologetically. A stage overlooked a flat cement area; a dance floor or a good space for an audience. In the middle of the area is a lone folding metal chair. She walked me to the chair. I look at her, “no jodas,” I says. You are shitting me.

“For favor,” she says, eyes pleading, “They have prepared so much.”

In a daze, I sit and immediately, as if my ass touching the metal flipped a switch, a voice booms from the loudspeaker welcoming "el caminante Guillermo Grenier doing the Camino del Cimarron!"

Two youngish comedians take control of the cement stage, their banter stereotypes the Cuban güajiros and their problems. I become a character in their narrative. The heavy set güajiro, wearing a straw hat and red plaid shirt accuses the other of stealing his rooster.  The accused objects strongly.