Actually we were lucky even to get to the hotel reception to enquire about accommodation for as we were coming up the steep concrete driveway, our horse slipped, panicked a little and veered sharply, causing the cart we were in to lurch and then roll over, causing our swift ejection. We were lucky not to be crushed or otherwise hurt. With our weight out of the cart, and the horse having regained some composure and leverage on its load, the driver was able to get the cart back upright. But we declined to get back in. We paid the driver and covered the final few metres on foot. There’s a lot to be said for the internal combustion engine vis a vis a horse, quite apart from the manure factor.
Having later found a nice casa, Casa Norte, we took a long walk after sunset to En Familia, a family restaurant that someone on the street had told us did good crab. We ordered both crab and lobster; we almost never eat lobster in Australia as we are not prepared to pay the price that Chinese importers will shell out for Australian product. But here in Caibarien, the price of a lobster (or crab) meal was less than a ham sandwich back home! Both the lobster and crab were OK (just), but chewy and overcooked, and suffering from the same mistake that seems to be common amongst Cuban restaurant/café cooks – being far too heavy-handed with the salt shaker! Perhaps that’s a reaction to the dearth of spices in Cuba. Even pepper, which you’d think would grow here in profusion, is not easy to find. We know – we looked out for it for days before spotting a bottle in a shop in Pina del Rio. We were in a long queue at the time and were excited when it was finally our turn to be served that the bottle was still there in the glass case, along with the other specialist grocery items.
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We only stayed in Caibarien for one night. The following morning we hired a taxi to take us west to Santa Clara and we travelled the 50km in style, in a green 1952 Oldsmobile. This vehicle was in reasonably good shape, with nice interior upholstery, suggesting that the mechanics mightn’t be too bad either. The smooth gutsy purr of the engine both exuded and engendered confidence, and it was a pleasant, relaxing drive all the way through attractive countryside to Santa Clara. We alighted from the Oldsmobile in Parque Vidal, the city centre plaza, and it didn’t take long to knock on a few doors in the surrounding streets and find a very nice casa, Hostal Candelaria, the home of friendly Carmen and Emilio. This became our own home for five nights, with Carmen kindly allowing us to use her kitchen, just off the leafy patio where we often sat in the late afternoon or evening when the heat and humidity had backed off.
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The “Battle of Santa Clara” in December 1958 between government troops and Fidel Castro’s renegades was the turning point in the revolution that toppled the then Cuban government in early ‘59. The battle was a triumph for its mastermind, Castro’s chief sidekick Che Guevara. From his spies in the train depot, Che knew that a few hundred heavily armed government troops were on their way to Santa Clara in an armoured train. Displaying both proactivity and creativity (something sadly lacking in Cuban transport arrangements today), Che’s band (military, not salsa) derailed the train with a borrowed bulldozer, and using their home-made explosives and rifles, effected the surrender of the government troops when they spilled from the train. Both the train and bulldozer are on display on the eastern outskirts of Santa Clara at the actual point of derailment and we inspected these.
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Apparently Che was as smart as Castro was hot-headed and together they made a formidable team and became close friends. Guevara became a minister and influential member of Castro’s government, and also being young and scruffily handsome, a legend in his own lifetime and even more so after. All over Cuba, in road signs, on government buildings, in songs, in paintings, on cigar boxes, and on clothing, the name and image of Che Guevara are front and centre. That might be a little risky for the government if the smart Che were still alive, but unlike the great survivor Fidel who lives on into his nineties, Che lived for only a few more years after Castro seized power, taking a bullet in ’67 in Bolivia while trying to stir up revolution there. Che’s remains were returned to Cuba in 1997 and are interred in a mausoleum on the western outskirts of Santa Clara that we also visited.
We had our best coffee in Cuba at the cafe of the Santa Clara cigar factory, and on two evenings we attended music concerts in Teatro Caridad in Parque Vidal – guitarist Rachid Lopez was the standout we thought.
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We saw in the New Year at the Restaurante Colonial 1878 where there was a DJ/singer combo belting out a nice mix of traditional and pop Cuban music. I was even seen on the dance floor with Leetuan although in my case it was not so much salsa as St Vitus dance - I hadn’t twitched so much since I lost my underpants back in Trinidad. We made our way back through Parque Vidal towards our casa shortly after midnight - the clock above Café Literario said 1225, but it could just as easily have been 1952.
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