While in Cuba I relayed my experience back to the Northwest Arkansas Times. I corresponded once every two weeks for a total of six entries. My writings were published on the Opinions Page. Below is a sample of the journal entries.
I’ve just returned from a ten-day tour of eastern Cuba. Three others and myself rented a car and set out to see as much as we could east of Havana. From the sugar cane fields to the Sierra Maestras, from the rain forest to the desert, we experienced both some of the highs and the lows of Cuba. We were harassed and we were guided. We visited some cities bursting with culture and we drove through the filthiest town I’ve ever seen.
As we were packing the car, several of our Cuban neighbors warned us to be very careful driving; they claimed that the country roads were littered with roaming cattle. What they failed to mention were the hitchhikers, bicycles, horses and horse drawn carts, tractors, and goats we would also have to compete with. The drive was similar to a video game—swerving between thumping horseshoes and dodging whatever livestock seemed to think the road was their pasture.
The first night of the trip was also probably the most eventful. We rolled into Camagüey at dusk, weary from a full day of driving. On the way into town, we were noticing the heavy bicycle traffic when all of a sudden a group of ten or so men on bikes, headed in the opposite direction, swerved in front of us and turned around to catch up with the "tourist car." The men surrounded the car, peddling as hard as they could to keep up, meanwhile knocking on the windows making their best offer on food and lodging. These men, broadly classified as jineteros, which comes from the word jinete, meaning horse jockey, wait for the chance to guide and offer their best deal to tourists, the horses. They offer everything from a box of fake Cuban cigars to a finding a private room.
While the majority of the time jineteros’ methods are a nuisance, they can at times be very helpful. Had it not been for a jinetero offering to sells us gas as we stopped to eat lunch along the southeastern shore, we would have been stuck 50 kilometers from the nearest gas station. During lunch, a young man came into the cafeteria and offered to sell us gasoline. We wanted no part of his illegal operation, but once we got back in the car we realized that we didn’t have enough gas to get to the next gas station. We followed the man to his house where he had a tank of rationed gas waiting for the next unprepared group of tourists.
Also in Camagüey, our car was side swiped as it was parked along a busy street, leaving a large scratch the length of one side of the car. We went to the police station to report the accident and get a police report for the car rental agency. When we arrived at the police station, there were half a dozen officers outside and another couple inside, all appearing in need of something to keep them busy. We explained what happened thinking that any one of them could write the report. As it turned out we needed to deal with a transportation officer, of which there was only one working in Cuba’s third largest city on that Friday night and he was busy with an accident. We waited close to an hour and a half before the correct officer finally arrived. Meanwhile, we sat through a shift change. Each passing officer looked at us blankly, wondering why we were there.
Cruising from one end of the country to the other we experienced many of Cuba’s cities and towns, some consisting of not much more than a few thatched roofed huts and dirt roads while others appeared to be metropolitan cities. Each place had its own charm: Santiago de Cuba, the former capital and second largest city, resembled San Francisco—with street car tracks leading through the hillside city overlooking the bay. The art lined, marble tiled pedestrian mall leading off the main plaza in Bayamo seemed out of place in a town that receives little tourist traffic. Despite all the great towns, nothing was more disturbing than driving through Moa, a small coastal town known for nickel-ore processing plants. The skyline in marred by three smokestacks billowing out black, red, and orange smoke. The river running through town and out to the bay was bright red with pollutants.
Moa was the only blemish during the ten day trek in which we drove from one end of the country to the other and climbed from sea level to Cuba’s highest point, Pico Turquino. Between the coastal highways and the dirt roads through the jungle, the untouched country side and the and the city hustlers, it felt like we were traversing the world, while only circling the island nation.
