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.

Viñas-Zulueta: Part 2-The Birthplace of Cuban Soccer

 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.  

Day 5: Viñas to Zulueta: Part 1-We find an aboriginal tool!

We Find an Aboriginal Tool!!

I stayed at the Ariosa for a long time. When I arrived there, the workers asked me, “Hey, where you come from?” And I told them, “I’m a freedman from Purio.” Then they took me to the overseer. He gave me work. He put me to cutting cane. It didn’t seem strange to me; I was already an expert at that. I also cleared the field. That sugar mill was average size.  The owner was Ariosa by name, a pure-blood Spaniard. The ariosa was one of the first to be converted to a central site because it had a wide belt that carried the cane to the boiler room. Inside there, it was like all other sugar mills. There were brownnoses and ass kissers for the overseers and masters. (61-62)

--Esteban Montejo

 

At six we leave the camp, hit the sidewalk of the main street, and walk back to the park to join the dirt path to Adela. The most direct route would have been to continue following the old railroad line to Chiquitico, the old Ariosa ingenio where Esteban worked, but a lunch had been arranged at Adela and that’s where we’re going. 

We cross barbed wire fences, walk on grassland, and enter a series of cattle ranches where fences, angry cows, and a relentless mixture of mud and cow shit require us to focus on each step. The cows with calves by their sides eye us suspiciously. We work our way under the fences and around barbed wire gates. Two real cowboys cross our path, riding tall and straight in the saddle, sporting cowboy hats made of straw. 

Walking to Viñas on the Ghost of the Railroad Built by Zulueta

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. 

Day 4 (cont.): Remedios--Casa del Cimarron--Viñas

Cuevas de Guajabana: La Casa del Cimarron

 

We follow the asphalt road about two hundred meters to the dirt road leading up to the caves.  The terrain is flat as we make the turn, but we see that the abrupt hills will have their way with us in about two hundred meters in.  

“Up there,” says Alexis. “Can’t see them from here but up there are the caves.”  

From the road I see two green hills; one has been flattened as a result of gravel mining. 

“Las Tetas de Guajabana,” says Alexis. The tits of Guajabana. “That’s what we call them. Before they flattened one with the mining. It’s almost gone. Now it’s a teta y media.” A tit and a half.

A subtle, easy climb winds up the intact teta to the Casa del Cimarrón. Some industrial materials--cement, rebar--litter the flat land leading to a path that disappears into the trees. Excitement bubbles inside me at the chance of seeing this cave which a 1988 Bohemia article dubbed “La Casa del Cimarrón.”