Well, this is the last of the Cuba posts! Kind of exciting to be moving on to other things next week! A big reminder that my show for ’150K From Here’ is opening this Thursday, May 17 – 7-11PM at Cre8ery in Winnipeg’s Exchange District. I hope to see you there!
Gibara
The only place we stayed besides the hotel that had a bathtub.
I thought the fish were a cool personal touch!
Morón
Varadero.
While staying in Havana, as we were packing up to go, I thought to take a photo of the room (& bathroom) we were staying in. It was something I did at every casa particular we stayed in. I often took the photo on the last day right before packing up my camera gear. I kind of wish now I had taken more time for the photos, rather than just rushing and quickly taking one. It’s sort of neat to see them as a series, and I wish they were better thought out photos. But none the less, here they are:
Casa in Havana, Mike taking a break from packing.
Bathroom in Havana.
Casa in Viñales.
Casa in Playa Larga.
Bathroom in Playa Larga.
The last 3 nights of our trip were spent in Cuba’s famous resort town of Varadero. We stayed at an all-inclusive at the very end of the Varadero peninsula. It was a very nice hotel, but after the 3 weeks we had spent driving, staying in casas, eating amazing Cuban food, and struggling from time to time – the hotel seemed way too North Americanized and over the top. I highly encourage anyone who goes to resorts to step off of them, and take in some of the country’s real culture. The food we had in the hotel was bland and not very good. Yet the food we had all throughout Cuba (gas station pizza aside!) was amazing. One of my favourite dishes were baked plantain chips. I’ve made them here at home a few times. The only new fruit I really liked (I know, tropical island and I’m not a big “fruit person”) was passionfruit, and I haven’t been able to find it since returning to Manitoba.
I was sick for the 3 nights we were at the hotel, and by that point I kind of wanted to just get home. Being sick while traveling makes me homesick. I want my own bed and my dogs. I’m a wimp, I know! With me being sick, we didn’t venture very far form the hotel. We went to the Centro de Conveciones Plaza América (an American style mall) to go to the cigar shop and buy some last minute souvenirs that we had yet to find. Had I been feeling better I would have liked to have spent a day walking around the actual town of Varadero, but the Universe had decided otherwise.
The main reason we stayed in a hotel and not in another casa was that I really wanted to go sailing, and it made more sense money-wise to stay in a hotel that offered sailing. But the 3 days we were there were too windy and the hotel wasn’t taking boats out. So, yet again, Murphy’s Law kicked my butt. The whole trip had been like that though. Anything minor that could have gone wrong, went wrong. Right down to the last day before we were headed to the airport. We had travelled the whole island in a loop for 3 weeks, and on the last day we had a screw in the tire of the car. So, Mike quickly changed it and we were off to the airport. But it was such a kick in the pants, as this kind of stuff seemed to happen to us on the whole trip. Even while we were in the plane waiting to take-off, there was a delay as someone on the plane was sick and they had to get a doctor and eventually took the passenger off. To us, it was: “Of course! Why wouldn’t that happen???”
Originally when we got back from Cuba, we were both tired of travelling and not quite over all the frustrations of our trip. Many people couldn’t understand why we had difficulties or didn’t enjoy it 100%. But they weren’t there on the trip with us. They didn’t experience the ups & downs we did. And that is all part of travelling. Since being home, my hindsight on my trip is being seen through rosier coloured glasses. I now know all the things I wouldn’t do, and all the things I would. Cuba was definitely a learning trip, and for that, I am grateful!
So here are a few photos of the typical Cuban wares we picked up to take home, while staying in Varadero:
The above was the last photo I took in Cuba, sitting in the Juan Gualberto Gómez Airport near Varadero.
Next week I will start some theme posts of photos from the casas I took.
Here are a couple photos from the last driving leg of our trip. I have no idea where this exactly is, other than somewhere between Morón and Varadero. It was a long 8 hour drive day, and it was our last real travel day in Cuba. I stopped by the roadside to take some photos of some farms while the sunshine was peeking aout between storm clouds. Next week is a few photos from Varadero, and then I will make some posts with the series of photos I took of the casas we stayed in.
And a reminder that my solo show, ’150K From Here’ is happening in a little over 4 weeks!!! Almost all the images are printed and being mounted! May 17, 7-11Pm @ Cre8ery in Winnipeg! See the show write-up here.
As I wrote in a previous post, we spent 4 nights in Baracoa, 2 nights in one casa, and 2 nights in another. I was ill the first 2 days, so we didn’t get up to much for those days. Although we did take a walk to one of the gas stations for a coke or ice cream each day, and went and sat on the malecón wall and watched the waves. On our third day, on advice from Adrian our casa owner, we drove 30km east of Baracoa to the Yumurí River. We had just wanted to chill, maybe sit at the beach, but when we got to Yumurí, it was chaos! There were a couple cars ahead of us, and probably 50 Cubans all trying to get people to take a boat tour down the river. As I still wasn’t sure about the stability of my stomach, I didn’t think a boat ride would be a great idea. So, we back-tracked down the road a bit and found a nice vacant stretch of beach. It was a gorgeous day, so we plunked ourselves down and took in some saltwater scenery. The sand at this beach was black, and what is called “dog’s tooth” grain. (Meaning the grains of sand are larger.) It was a bit rough on the feet after awhile, but I can’t say I really minded. I finally had a chance to take some photos and really worked this stretch of beach (or so I thought). 5 minutes into my photo fun, my husband was approached by a couple of Cubans asking for money, food, clothes, whatever they could get. Mike politely said no, but they weren’t taking the hint, and they sat down with him and started asking for our shoes, and for us to take them back to where we were staying so we could give them money. After about 5-10 minutes of hassle, Mike look like he had enough, and I quickly packed up my stuff and we headed back to Baracoa.
I originally didn’t write much about my Cuba experiences, for fear that my audience may not understand where I was coming from. However, by not telling my story, it can make it impersonal and dull. So I am trying to share some more details of our trip, but I don’t think I can explain a lot of it, you just had to be there. In a country like Cuba, as a tourist, you will be hassled non-stop for money, clothes, food, transportation, anything and everything. (And when I say clothes, I mean even the ones you are wearing.) It got rather frustrating dealing with this every day for 3 weeks. I’m not a big people person (I like individual people, and I have social skills) but I don’t like crowds. I like to blend in and observe as much as possible, but I found it fairly impossible to do so in Cuba.
All that aside, here are some of the photos I took:
Mike wading in the water
A bridge over a stream that feeds into the ocean
Stream.
Blending of stream & ocean
There aren’t many photos from Baracoa itself. At least not ones that are mine (Mike was pretty handy with his point & shoot). I was quite sick while we were in Baracoa, and spent a good 2 days wearing a path on the floor to the bathroom. Oh, the joys of travel! We had originally planned to spend 2 nights in Santiago de Cuba, but we had been finding the cities stressful and thought an extra 2 days in a beach town would be a little nicer. So we spent a very long day driving from Bayamo all the way to Baracoa. One of the highlights of the drive was a respite from the Caribbean tunes, by picking up on the U.S. Guantánamo Bay naval base radio. The views of the highway from Guantánamo to Bayamo were insane. I really wanted to get out and take photos in the mountains of the cloud forests, they were low and full as it was raining. However, the only points where you could pull over on the mountain highway, were jammed with Cubans trying to sell various wares and foods, and there was no room to stop. Given the rainy conditions we also just wanted to keep going and get to Baracoa, as it was a really long driving day. We did stop at one spot before the mountains (near Tacre I believe), and here are the results:
As I mentioned, there aren’t really any photos from Baracoa itself, but next week I will be featuring our day trip to Boca de Yumurí (just east of Baracoa). There aren’t many Cuba posts left, as we’ve entered into the last week of our trip’s photos.
As I mentioned last week, we had a very brief stay, just 2 nights, in Bayamo. The only reason we stayed 2, was we had planned on doing a trek through Gran Parque Nacional Sierra Maestra to see the Cuban Revolution Headquarters. However, neither Mike nor I were feeling well and we thought it would be best to relax and work on feeling better, as we had a long day of driving the next day. We also didn’t have an exact plan for the hike and how to get to the park. It was kind of complicated, and we weren’t able to plan it ahead of time. I think I would try and get closer to the park, stay in a town closer to the La Plata entrance. At times it was very hard to plan parts of the trip due to lack of info available while in Canada, and not being able to book things ahead of time. The only thing I managed to do ahead of time was book the casa particulars, and make a rough itinerary. Everything else (and at times even the casas) had us flying by the seat of our pants.
So in Bayamo, we walked around town a bit, there wasn’t a whole lot to see. We ate in an amazing paladar (restaurant) twice, attempted to make phone calls home as we had found a pay phone, and spent most of our time on the balcony outside our room reading and playing cards. I also took the time to take photos of our unsuspecting Cuban neighbours, catching them in the real, everyday moments of their lives.
The photo above was what I was shooting through (with a max. zoom of 70mm at the time). Cuba definitely doesn’t have ‘codes’ when it comes to electrical “upgrades” or housing. Throughout the afternoon we kept hearing a loud buzzing noise, and eventually we also noticed that the wires were arcing. This made us question the safety of the wiring, and our proximity to it. Glad I got my photos before that! Hah!
Next week we are off to Baracoa. I will probably do at least 2 posts from there, as we had stayed there for 4 days, the longest we stayed in any one place.
As you may know, I had this post all finished, I was in the middle of publishing it, and my server went down. Ugh. So I lost the whole post as the auto-save mode wasn’t working. The technical issues have been ironed out, but there’s still the matter of this here post. So, here I go again:
Trinidad. I really enjoyed our stay in this city. It has a vibrant heart immersed in arts, music & culture. It’s very different from any of the other towns/cities in Cuba (we stayed in about 15 different places), and Trinidad was unique. It is a more laid back and easy-going city. The 2nd most frustrating aspect of our trip to Cuba (the 1st being navigating – I’ll share more on that another day), was being hassled non-stop by people on the street. I’m a non-crowd-of-people, open spaces kind of person (think small, Canadian, prairie city), and was thrown out of my comfort zone for most of the trip. I really like Trinidad as people would take a polite “No, thank-you” and let you keep walking. In almost every other city, the street peddlers & hustlers were more in your face, and would follow you as you walked and there were people pulling you in every direction every 10 feet. It got tiresome very quickly. So we appreciated the calm, relaxed attitude of Trinidad.
The city of Trinidad lies not far from the coast and a short trip’s distance to the mountains. We were only there for 3 nights, and could have stayed at least a week with plenty to do. I’d highly recommend adding Trinidad to your list of places to go in Cuba. We stayed in the old part of town right along the historical Plaza Mayor. This section of the town is pedestrian only (although that includes mopeds & horses). We went out every night for a walk around town and took in the music and quiet streets. We talked with a few random Cubans and we kept running into this group from the Netherlands (they were the ones swimming at Topes -featured in last week’s post). The house we stayed in was owned by direct descendants of the original Colonial families, as were all the homes in the Plaza Mayor area. Enough talk, on to the photos. Welcome to Trinidad:
One of the many market alleys. The white clothing is handmade & embroidered. It's specific to this region due to the history of the African slaves and the popular Santaría religion.
Mike and I searched for days for this gallery in Trinidad. We had been told about it by Roy & Christina (2 Netherlanders that were staying at our casa in Havana), and they had shown us pictures of some of the art. They said it should be easy to find, as it's the only gallery with clowns. We didn't come across it until our last walk through the town, we were glad we did, and bought 2 (non-clown) paintings.
Streets, buildings, telephone poles, trees - none of these are straight and make for difficult aligninment in photos. But it adds to the quirkiness of Trinidad.
This is a house of Santaría. Fans of the tv show, 'departures' should recognize it.
This is all that was inside the front room of this house. It was very quiet, and kind of creepy.
The casa particular we stayed in (I've found photos of this house in every guide book we've looked at for Trinidad)
Next week will be a brief post about our very short stay in Cuba’s 2nd oldest town, Bayamo.
Also – I have recently entered the world of Twitter. I will throw a link up on the website, feel free to follow me: @keyfoto
Topes de Collantes is located in the Sierra del Escambray near the city of Trinidad. Mike (my husband) and I took the trek on our first full day staying in Trinidad. I had found it in a guide book, and the book did not do it justice, nor do I find my photos did. It was really beautiful. We hiked down to Salto del Caburní, watched some Netherlanders swim, and then made our rather long trek back up the mountain. Neither of us had done any hiking in a tropical climate, so that was a first. We definitely under estimated the heat and should have brought more water with us. At least now we know for next time. Although we made great time, we did it in about half of the duration the guide book said. Anyone who is heading to Trinidad, I highly recommend this hike.
The path turns a corner and you walk into this within the first 10 minutes of the hike.
A view from the other end.
The trail.
Getting a bit rougher.
I hated these stairs (they never ended) on the way back up. But the idea of a refreshing coke at the end kept us going!
Salto del Caburní. An ideal swimming spot (should have brought my suit!).
My husband Mike.
The rock wall on the way back up.
Me sitting in the rock wall (image by Mike).
This was a 'Mirador' (lookout spot) on the drive back to Trinidad. It has an amazing view of Trinidad and the coast beyond.
Next week: the city of Trinidad!
Alrighty. So here is the last batch from our stint in Playa Larga. These were taken on the day we travelled form Playa Larga to Trinidad. These may look somewhat familiar, as they were taken along the stretch of coast between Playa Larga and Playa Girón.
I can't get over how clear the water is. I didn't do much in the way of editing of these (besides the first and the last), the colours are just that vivid.
My husband Mike, taking a last look at this paradise.
