28 October to 30 October 2015
In Trinidad, we meet a fellow Freiburger, Wolfgang, who recommends to hike the highest peak of Cuba, Pico Turquino, just short of 2,000m, in the Sierra Maestra. Candice and I therefore decide to ditch Santiago de Cuba and get off the bus in Bayamo from where you can reach the national park.
On the bus to Bayamo, we meet an incredibly nice Dutch couple, Sjanna and Elon, who are also en course to climb the peak. We are lucky to tuck on to the tour they have organised. Their tour operator Alejandro is a great help and organises the hike, taxi and accommodation for us. Unfortunately, we choose the wrong casa in Bayamo infested with cockroaches. On the positive side: one more fear overcome, I didn’t think I was able to get any sleep in a room with massive roaches. The delicious banana milkshake the next morning nearly makes up for it.
Another Lada taxi that is about to fall apart takes the Dutch couple and us the 1.5 hours drive to Santa Domingo, the village at the foot of the mountain. On this beautiful morning, we pass many school children in procession carrying the Cuban flag and flowers. They are remembering the anniversary of the dissappearance of revolutionary Camilo Cienfuegos whose plane went missing over the ocean on 28 October 1959 aged 27 during a night flight to Havana. The flowers are thrown into rivers and we see a few later when we take a bath in the waterhole in Santo Domingo.
The first day in the Sierra Maestra, we hike to the comandancia, the headquarters from where Fidel, Che etc were planning and executing the revolution in the late fifties (you can tell I didn’t quite manage to learn the history and dates properly). I find the most interesting part of the hike talking to a split group of Cubans from the Investigation Ministry in Havana. Anna, Ramon and Rafael decided to abandon the Pico climb, on which the rest of their work colleagues had gone, as they felt it was too strenuous for them. Anna must be in her late fifties and is a resolute, humorous woman. As a specialist in rice cultivation, she travels the country to check and control the rice production. She has also travelled internationally to Vietnam, Philippines, Europe etc. Definitely part of an elite, she speaks highly of her country and the revolution.
She explains how they receive national and international information: there are seven TV channels: news, sports, cultural etc. (I forgot the rest). One of them, Telesur, is Venezuelan, and is the only non Cuban channel. There are three newspapers: Granma, the nationwide paper, el rebelde joven (the young rebel) – the youth paper and La Habana, the newspaper for the capital. Anna mentions the Internet has been around for a couple of years, which I don’t quite understand, as everyone else tells me that the wifi spots have only been in place for two months. Maybe she has had access for some time as part of her work. It would be interesting to see which pages she can access and which she can’t.
I ask her how she got to know of the 9/11 attack on the twin towers. She suddenly becomes very emotional. She had been working in the rice fields that day, when someone came running, told them the news and gathered them to see it on TV. She says it was terrible and people were afraid for their relatives in NY. On the other hand, she accuses Obama of terrorism in the Middle East.
Back in Santo Domingo, Sjanna, Elon, Candice and I go to the swimming hole, where we hesitantly slide into the water. The locals, above all Ernesto, the son of our casa, are much more daring and take the jump from street level. A whole family takes their bath there and a farmer washes his mules after a hard days work. There is so much happening, we cancel the Free Reading time.
After dinner, I somehow manage to convince everyone of a game of Wizzard and my playlist 2015. Ernesto wins the game.
At 9am the next morning, we start our 18km hike to the top of Pico Turquino at 900m above sea level. The path is very muddy and goes through thick green vegetation. We are delighted to see the national bird, Tocororo (that’s the sound he makes). His feather colour and pattern resemble the Cuban flag. We also see the hummingbird (kolibri), the smallest bird on earth. After 4.5 hours, we reach “base camp”, the shelter, where we will spend the night. There is another group of 15 Cubans already there, also on a recreational work trip. They start the 5km (600m elevation) ascend to the peak some time before us. We follow after lunch, but catch up with the first splitter group pretty soon. My competitive side awakens and at the end we are the first ones to reach the top.
It was hard work, however, and one of the toughest climbs I have done so far. There were some extreme inclines in between (my garmin tells me some 350m elevation on 500m distance – is that possible?). In addition, the weather took a change to the worse. It absolutely poured down and we were completely drenched. It was so bad I didn’t even dare taking out my camera to shoot some celebratory photos on reaching the peak. This was despite our guide’s assurances at lunch that it wasn’t likely to rain. He also assured us that we wouldn’t have to climb a particularly hill and then went straight up it?! Maybe my hearing was impaired at this point. We started singing songs to keep up morale at this point. Shame that the only song of which we could remember all lyrics was “Killing me softly”, the Fugees version from 1996.
We are glad to be back at base camp before dark. All guides and workers at the shelter are suitably impressed. We enjoy some desperately needed hot tea and change into dry clothes. One of the Cuban girls only returns to the shelter at 8pm, two hours after sunset, swearing loudly! I thought there may be some Hüttenzauber with all the Cubans, but the dance floor remains empty despite some Cuban music (the guide quickly shut down my attempt to play the American music on my playlist 2015). On the contrary, at 9.30pm, everyone has long gone to bed, and we follow suit, so that they can switch off the only light in the dormitory.
Getting into our still wet and now cold shoes the next day is a challenge. In the end, I am happy when we return to our casa after the 8km hike downhill from the shelter. From there we take the taxi back to Bayamo, where we say goodbye to our lovely Dutch couple. Candice and I stay the night in a very clean casa near the bus terminal, no cockroach alert this time. We need to get up at 4am to catch the Havana bus to Santiago de Cuba and from there the 8am Bus to Baracoa, landsend.
Sjanna and Elon, I am so glad we met. The short time with you was very enriching. I hope we will meet again. Viva Carmalogy! All we do is win, no matter what…
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