A World Away from Havana: on Cuban bureaucracy, exploring Santiago de Cuba, and hiking the island’s tallest peak

Location:
Cuba

hiking, cultural exploration

By V!VA user

It meant skipping class, waking up at 6 a.m. and waiting in line at the train station for five hours, exactly 15 days before our planned trip. A group of friends and I had successfully made off with our bounty- avoiding paying the going tourist rate of $70 for a ticket from Havana to Santiago de Cuba. Instead, we snagged them them using our Cuban residency cards for the princely sum of less than $3 per head (food and subzero air conditioning included). Now that this frustrating yet fruitful interaction with the Cuban economy was behind us, I commenced preparations for our trip to the island’s southeast extremes. We were going to get to know the Cuba outside of the country’s cosmopolitan, mestizo-dominated capital, where I had lived and studied for the past several months.

A little more than two weeks later, we stepped off the efficient, recently imported train and pushed through swarms of touts offering food, lodging and discounted cigars Here, I encountered the Cuba I was looking for- a decidedly African and Caribbean Cuba with friendly, insular locals who had largely been spared from the tourist onslaught that dominates Varadero and others of the island’s exotic locales. The same people, accents, rhythms and street-side art stands looked down upon by habaneros as country bumpkin.

After several days of soaking in the fare of Cuba’s second largest city, we headed to a local car rental agency. We hoped to find a steady set of wheels that would whisk us through Santiago’s rural environs to our planned hike of Pico Turquino, the island’s tallest mountain, and eventually back to our home away from home in Havana. After a pleasant half-hour chat with Jorge, the desk agent, I explained to him our plans to rent a car in Santiago with the intention of dropping it off in Havana. After cackling with disapproval, he explained to us the following:

A) one-way rentals between Santiago and Havana are “almost impossible”;

B) he wouldn’t rent to us anyway, since we did not have our original passports with us, and;

C) A and B were both irrelevant, since we were students, and they have a policy against renting to students.

But in Havana, I countered, we had previously rented cars with only photocopies of our passports, in spite of being students and, furthermore, they told us in Havana that we could rent a car, one-way between Santiago and Havana, no problem.

Jorge let out an exaggerated sigh. “Everyone in Havana is crazy,” he reasoned. “Anything goes there.”

Dejected, but not defeated, we made two other unsuccessful trips to car rental agencies. One of which, Jorge had taken the liberty of calling to warn against renting to us, advice which they dutifully heeded. Finally, we found an agent with enough Havana in him to heave caution to the wind and send us on our merry way in a creamy, battered Peugeot.

Sailing on the wings of our success, we left Santiago behind. We eventually found our way with the help of friendly hitchhikers through Afro-Cuban religious monuments and dreamy beach enclaves to the entrance of Pico Turquino, all 1,974 meters of whose height we would be scaling the following morning. We checking into the area’s only lodging and I had a night of falsely triumphant dreams concerning my physical ability to endure a day of strenuous hiking in the Caribbean sun, interrupted with great frequency by the many varieties of insects that were sharing my bed. I arose at 5 that morning with my travel companions to meet with our guide, Yasser, and head to the mountain.

A wiry man with the endurance of a camel, Yasser led us through step after increasingly plodding step up Pico Turquino’s exhausting paths, punctuated by frequent water breaks. He chit chatted with us about how some 45 years prior, an already middle-aged Fidel Castro crisscrossed these very same trails, plotting to overthrow the regime of Fulgencio Batista.

It was, to be sure, no Sunday afternoon stroll. At 22 km (around 13 miles) round trip and rising more than a mile above the adjacent Caribbean Sea, Pico Turquino offered both a punishing physical test and increasingly splendid panoramic views of the Caribbean coast. Five hours and 40 minutes in, refueled by having consumed the 60 peanut bars that we had bought in Santiago, as well as the sugary mini-bananas that Yasser had requisitioned from a local farmer, we reached the peak. It offered the definitive reward of crisp ocean breezes, celebratory picture-snapping and an unrivaled view of the seemingly endless sea below.

We basked enough in our accomplishment. Then, we commenced our descent, less physically strenuous than the way up, but harder on the knees. I’ll still be feeling this, I thought to myself, when I’m back in Havana.

As Yasser explained, during our celebratory dinner at his nearby house, we finished in 9 hours and 20 minutes, which bests the average time of 10 hours. As if referring to a subject as mundane as the weather, he noted that his personal record was 4 hours, flat. I refused to let that dampen my sense of accomplishment.

Legs wobbly, but pride still intact, we went back to Santiago. It turned out we had to return the rental car that we had acquired with such Kafkaesque difficulty. Far outside the 15 day window to buy train tickets back to Havana at the Cuban rate, we attempted to bribe the vendor, who seemed not to notice the $20 bill we had strategically placed amongst our Cuban residency booklets. He gave us the discount regardless.

After a seven-hour delay for unspecified reasons, prompting nothing but stoic acceptance amongst the waiting Cuban passengers, we were on our way back to Havana. We had absorbed the sights, sounds and smells of Cuba’s decidedly un-Havana like second city. We conquered the island’s highest peak. Our eyes, ears, nose and calves would remember these feats for some time to come.

Further Information

Travel tips: A rental car is helpful to visit Pico Turquino, though one could also hitchhike, a favorite pastime amongst Cubans.

Must see/do at this place: Santiago de Cuba has few must-see sights, aside from places of historical interest related to the Cuban revolution and Fidel Castro's coming to power. It is more of a destination for taking in the ambiance.