Santiago de Cuba is a city on the far North-East of the island. It is a long way from the usual tourist hotspots like Havana, Trinidad, Viñales and Varadero. However this city is the birthplace of Fidel’s revolution and you can still feel and see this everywhere in the city. It is also ground zero for Cuba’s traditional Trova and Son (from which salsa was born) scene. For these reasons I decided I could not skip this city. Read the story of my Santiago day trip here. For the entire Cuban itinerary click here.

Wednesday 24th: Resacón

Overslept

My alarm had either failed in taking me out of my inebriated state or I had inadvertently turned it off. In any case, the reason I eventually did wake up was Mama Casa knocking on my door. I had only 40 min left before my bus to Santiago departed. So basically 10 min before I had to be in the bus station. I grabbed all my shit and stuffed it in my backpack, barely conscious of what I was doing. After saying sorry about 20 times to the lady, I gave her a (probably very smelly) hug after downing 2 glasses of her delicious fresh fruit juice.

My backpack wieghing me down, I rushed down the street to the bus station about 10 minutes after waking up. Arriving there the dehydration already kicked in and I desperately needed water. A smart old dude in a wheelchair sold it out of his window 2 houses down. He effectively saved me from turning into one of those dry hard sponges during the bus trip. I threw my backpack in the bus, claimed two seats and after putting on some The XX, I started drifting in and out of much needed sleep.

The Ride

At the first longer stop I realized I was very hungry and got a shitty and overpriced bocadillo with jamón y queso. Much NOT to my surprise anymore I again bumped into Chienfang, who was on the same bus but only up until Camaguey. We again synced on what we had missed from each other’s trips over the past days. She bought me an ice cream as a thanks for getting her drunk the other night in Trinidad.

The rest of the day was basically a mix of series, taking notes, reading, and sleeping with one consistency: a bus that stopped way too many times. During the stops I did get to know Hayoung, a solo traveling Korean girl. When we finally did get to Santiago at around 22h00 we decided to cut costs by sharing a bicitaxi and eventually also a room in the casa she had in mind. She was happy with my help in communicating with the hosts in Spanish and I was happy with a bed for 10 CUC.

Warm Welcome

The hosts made us feel very welcome, especially considering I was 22h30 and we had no reservation. They gave us a big room with two big beds and a huge bathroom. We dropped our stuff, and both welcomed a half litre of water and a clean toilet. Food was the next priority on our list, but by his time most restaurants in Santiago were closed. We walked a bit up the Enramadas until we saw St. Pauli, which still seemed to be open. They told us the kitchen was already closed however but referred us to a Chinese place called Beijing.

This turned out to be a tiny very local place with equally tiny prices but huge portions. We both got fried rice and it was delicious. We had to give up though halfway through the plate and asked for the rest to be wrapped for tomorrow. After a quick Wi-Fi stop in the park we stumbled back home and immediately went to bed.

Thursday 25th: M 26-7

Walking Tour

I got up and had some breakfast in the very nice patio of the casa. Hayoung stumbled out of the room somewhat later and had the rest of the rice from the day before for breakfast. Meanwhile I mapped the historic walk of the Lonely Planet into my maps.me so I didn’t have to look in the book the whole time.

We first walked all the way down the Enramadas to the Parque Alameda at the waterside. From there we started our walk up the hill that is Santiago. First stop was the not so interesting Museo de la Lucha Clandestina. The weird artifacts and clothes belonging to members of the attack on the Moncada Barracks did not really tell any of the story. So, I explained what I knew from the guide to Hayoung like how Batista sealed his own fate by sparing Fidel’s life.

We walked down the Padre Pico steps and back up to the Balcón de Velázquez. In most places here they had applied the ‘pay for pictures’ tactic. We wandered further to the Cathedral and eventually all the way up to the Barracks themselves. Everywhere along the way there were subtle and less subtle reminders of the 26th of July attack. Santiago clearly identified itself as the birthplace of Fidel’s revolution, even though it had almost ended there before it started.

Cemetery

From the barracks we successfully took a local bus for 1 cup to the train station which was walking distance from the cemetery. We had to pay 3 CUC to visit the whole thing, but we were satisfied seeing the most important and impressive tombs of Céspedes, José Marti and Fidel himself. There were a lot of guards telling us constantly where we could and could not stand. These invisible boundaries were annoying but clearly not to be ignored. We watched the changing of the guards: a very pompous ceremony which they apparently performed each half hour.

We took a bicitaxi back to the lower end of Enramadas. On the way up we stopped in the ice cream garden and both got a huge ice cream for 5 CUP, which is about 16 euro cents. Satisfied, we walked back to the casa and I started figuring out my plan.

The Plan

At first, to save time I thought a flight might be an option. However, the internal flights required reservation of at least 2 days ahead. On top of that they only flew to Havana, not Varadero. If I stayed one more night in Santiago that meant I would have only about half a day in Varadero. If shit went south with the buses I might be in trouble. So, I decided to just hop on the night bus that night.

I called ahead from the casa to Viazul and reserved my spot. I took a nap in the AC to cool off a bit. Next, more conscious this time, I went to buy enough water to survive the bus and stuffed my warm sweater in my small backpack to keep me from catching a cold. All set, I said goodbye to Hayoung and the casa daddy stopped a motorcycle for me.

Departure

Being me (and thus incredibly clumsy) I obviously burned myself on the exhaust when getting on the bike. My two backpacks made the extremely fast ride down the hill even more interesting (read: terrifying). It was a hell of a thrill, but I got there way faster than I expected. In the bus station I ran into a couple I had seen and talked to at already 4 different spots around Cuba. We got on the bus together and found some good spots, totally ignoring the assigned ones, as everyone did. I quickly had to put on my sweater to save myself from a fricking lung infection. I honestly think they put the AC on the ‘polar’ setting in these buses.

The lights went out almost immediately after departure, so reading was not an option. It would have been if I had loaded some more books on the stupid kindle. Oh well, I watched a movie and eventually slipped in and out of sleep during the many stops along the way. I think it was after Camaguey I got a rather huge smelly dude taking the seat next to me so my curling up hours on two seats option was officially out the window.