Santiago - Cradle of the Revolution

Saturday, February 11, 2017
Santiago de Cuba, Cuba
Seven hours is a very long time to sit in a bus ... even if it is comfortable! On our way east, about halfway, the land looked richer and everything greener. Fields were encircled by hedges of cactus and there were more palms. The land was irrigated and cultivated with a variety of crops including huge swathes of sugarcane punctuated by fields of bananas. The sun set around 6pm and we didn't arrive in Santiago till 9pm so the last part of the journey was in the dark.

We were met by a taxi driver with a 1956 green and white Cadillac and as we drove down the street, we thought we saw the Danish couple we had chatted to on the bus in the little red Lada in front. At Casa La Ceiba, we met Orestes and his wife who showed us our apartment and then took us over the road to their restaurant for dinner, only to find this was where the Danes had ended up! We chatted over dinner and I had slow-cooked lamb for the first time in Cuba and it was delicious. In fact we spent two more evenings eating here, one with Nethe and Johnny who were visiting from Copenhagen and celebrating their 12.5 year wedding anniversary, when we downed rather too many rum cocktails, and also our last night and all the food was very good, including the lobster. The other evening we went to Roy's Terrace which was recommended in Rough Guide, and found ourselves entering a house, being introduced to Mama in the kitchen then being shown up to a beautiful roof terrace adorned wIth ferns, orchids and lanterns which was really magical. We had the veggie and chicken set menus which were very good.
 


The Casa is named for the ceiba or kapok tree in the square outside, which has Cuban religious significance and been worshipped with rites and offering since the C18. The original tree was some 300 years old, and recently died of old age, now replaced by a young sapling. The other room in the Casa isn't taken, so we are very lucky to have the lounge and courtyard to ourselves, as well as our room. The other serious bit of luck was that Orestes has lent us a cable adapter to charge the iPad so for the time being at least, we are all systems go!

 
 


One afternoon, the heavens opened and the rain poured, but before long it was over, the street was dry and the local children were back playing in the square.



Santiago is maybe the most Caribbean part of Cuba, and Afro-Cuban culture with its music myths and rituals has its roots here. Added to that were the French planters and their slaves who moved here after the revolution in Haiti in C18 and found the mountain slopes perfect for growing coffee. This has created a city with a rich mix of inhabitants.

The city was hit by Hurricane Sandy in 2012, which wreaked havoc. Some 200,000 homes were damaged, 15,000 people lost their homes and 11 people were killed. While recovery was pretty fast, especially in the historic centre, even now it is obvious that the city lost most of its mature trees.

Santiago played a major part in the wars of independence from the Spanish and continued to be a centre of dissension. In 1953 Fidel Castro chose Santiago for his debut battle against the Moncada barracks in Santiago, which proved a fiasco but brutal reprisals and the imprisonment of 32 rebels including Castro, led him on the path to leadership of the Revolution. In 1959, the victorious Casto delivered his maiden speech from the town hall in Parque Cespedes. When Castro died in November aged 90, there was a nine-day mourning period then his ashes were interred in Santiago - The Cradle of the Cuban Revolution.

We wandered down the main shopping street, where for the first time we saw Puma and Reebok shops rather than just Cuban stores, although I shouldn't think the trainers would be within the reach of many at CUC$75 a pair. Reaching Parque Cespedes there was the Cathedral on one side and the town hall on the other, and also the C16 Mudejar style house which once belonged to Velazquez, the first conquistador of Cuba. It typically contained a courtyard round a well, wooden screens, frescos and beautiful cedar ceilings called alfarjes.




 

 
We walked through a less touristy part of town to Plaza Marte, the previous site of executions by the Spanish and now the site of a monument to veterans of the Wars of Independence. The smurf-like cap is actually the gorro frigio, given to slaves of Ancient Rome when they were granted their freedom and a traditional symbol of Cuban independence. We continued to the site of the Moncada Barracks, now a school, but still with a castellated and turreted wall surrounding it.

 


Carnavel in Santiago is a huge extravaganza, with four days of processions with floats, costumes, music, dancing and conga parades. Since we won't be here in July, it was good to look round the the Museo del Carnavel which contained various photos and exhibits from previous years.

 


Needless to say, you can hear music everywhere here and we were drawn into the Artex bar by the sound of son and stayed for a beer. Strangely, there was a mural of Parque Cespedes with polar bears, but we couldn't get an explanation except it was crazy! We also returned another day for the early evening set, played by a band of women, and watched a group who had obviously been learning to salsa for much longer than us, try out their moves to the music!



Rum dates to the early 1500's but it was pretty rough stuff, however a new technique of distillation introduced by Facundo Bacardi in Santiago in the 1860s involving filtering it through charcoal and then ageing it in oak barrels made it eminently more drinkable. Bacardi's wife suggested the bat insignia which signifies good luck in local folklore and proved a good marketing tool as illiterate Cubans could recognise the brand. The company and the family went from strength to strength and their politics went in tandem with their business needs. They pushed for independence from Spain, allied themselves with America and later opened office in New York. The Revolution, with its aim of redistributing wealth to the poor, was not in their interests at all and in1960 their main distillery was nationalised and their Cuban assets seized so the company shipped out of Cuba to the Bahamas where it remains today. Havana Club is now the most noticeable brand of rum in Cuba, with the youngest called Silver Dry used for cocktails and more aged rum drunk neat and highly prized. There is a Museo de Ron which explained the process and we looked round, seeing some production equipment and we were given a taster of the local 7 year old Santiago de Cuba rum. Like all museums here, there is barely a word of English, but the charge to look round most places is only a $CUC or two. The one place you can still see the word Bacardi in Santiago, is on the front of the huge museum one of the Bacardi sons built to house his collection of art and artefacts.

 
 

 
Since we arrived in Santiago in the dark, we hadn't realised how magnificent the surrounding Sierra de las Gran Piedra mountains were! We took a taxi some 15km up switchbacks, with a stop halfway to check the car wasn't overheating! We then climbed 459'steps to reach The Big Rock, some 1234m above the city, where there were slightly misty views in every direction, and the freshness of the air was really noticable. We also visited Museo Isabelica, a former coffee estate with the planters house built above the workshops and storage rooms and a large concrete drying area in front.

 
 
 


Talking of fresh air, I seem to have caught a bit of a cold, maybe from the AC in the bus, but returning to town, it was even more noticeable than usual the price to be paid for all these cute classic cars ... the horrendous pollution. You can just see huge clouds of black smoke puffing out of the back of many of the vehicles and the fumes seem even worse in the centre of Santiago, maybe because it is hilly and there are more vehicles, or the humidity or just my extra sensitive nose but whichever, I'm sneezing at every turn!

Our last day in Santiago we took a taxi to El Castillo del Morro which was built in the C17 to ward off pirates. It's huge, with a drawbridge, moat and thick walls ... seemingly impregnable, however an English pirate called Christopher Myngs captured it when he found it left unguarded ... they'd obviously all gone down the local for some ron! We then drove round the headland and took the 15 minute ferry to Cayo Granma, an island that takes just 20 minutes to walk round. We found a small terrace restaurant for a romantic lunch, wandered around and got the ferry back. The taxi was still waiting for us and on our return to the main square, Valentine's Day was in full swing ... although he had spotted some clues through the day ...

 
 
 
 
 
 

 



 
 


Tomorrow we travel eastwards again ...

Comments

Yoka
2017-02-17

Beautiful and colourful pictures

Nethe Johansen
2017-02-20

What an adventure you had in Santiago and very nice pictures. We vent to our luxiury resort in Playa Esmerelda. Beautiful spot, but quite a reservation for Rich (and rater chubby) European and primarily Canadian tourists. The food not as good as at Auroras place. Thank you for sharing your adventure with us and for being a little part of it.
Best wishes..
Johnny and Nethe

elainehayes
2017-02-28

Hello, thanks for your message, just got back home and will post the rest of our trip in the next day or two. Hope you enjoyed celebrating ... especially with that beautiful beach. Best wishes C&E

2025-02-15

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