Slow train coming
Trip Start
Jan 16, 2007
1
17
53
Trip End
Mar 01, 2007
Valle de Los Ingenios,
Cuba
Monday, January 29, 2007
It turns out, no. Jorge is emphatic when I ask him later, "Should I have given anything?" "Nada!" I take this advice to heart and begin to only bow to the bribe when I think a service of value has been done. (I have plenty of opportunities in the next few days to practice my resolve.)
The train, even a tourist train that begins and ends here--is predictably late
1- Jorge y familia
. We while away the time until it leaves (over an hour later) chatting with tourists from Belgium, Germany, France, and our home province (Powell River and the Okanagan). John, from the latter, is in Cuba for a beekeeper conference, working on a business proposal with the government. His progress through various levels of bureaucracy is has all the complexity of a hive, all the waywardness of a bee in flight.***
The train, pulled by a diesel engine in lieu of the antique steam locomotive, is an open 2-carriage rig which chugs its relaxed way over trestles and bridges into lush valleys. Banana trees, with their huge single mauve flower pods dangling below the green bunches, flash past. Royal and big belly palms dot the landscape, at regal odds with the poor farmer huts.
Bananas are cultivated here. Near the little streams, vast fields of their broad-fronded tops wave. In the hills beyond, the coffee was harvested a month ago. The red soil, the grey-blue mountains, the green cane fields, all vie for my attention.
The train wheezes to a stop at Manaca Ignaza. The outside world feels distant, yet when we climb toward the tower, hawkers dangle the usual black coral necklaces in our faces and a tour bus blocks the view of the hacienda
2- Full of steam
. The 50m landmark here is a slave watch tower. Spain continued using slave labour until little more than 100 years ago. Even after the tardy US had banned their importation, ships continued to take Africans from their homes to work the sugarcane fields. Today in a nice twist, white tourists push the four arms of the grindstone at a black Cuban's behest. The cane is pulverized and out comes the syrup.I'm told the train leaves in another 15 minutes, so no time to climb the tower.... About half an hour later the train starts to depart, then waits another 10 minutes. Could have gone up and down lots of times!
We've barely left the train station before we reach Casa Guachinanga, our final stop. Lucy chases chickens around the yard while I watch a whole pig being cranked on a rotisserie over an open firepit. The Rio Ay twines below us. Everything smells good, but the long table on the veranda is taken up by unfed Danish cyclists, and the other table has a "reserved sign" (and will stay stubbornly unpopulated the whole time). We have a 90-minute stop, but as time trickles away with no food or drink offered, the possibility of lunch fades.
With 25 minutes to go, plates of pork, rice, beans and yucca migrate from the kitchen. The Danes get it all, then some mercenary French from the train hijack a few plates. With 20 minutes to go we play the hungry 3-year-old card (although Lucy has been happily snacking on our supplies the whole time) and we're some of the few from the train to eat.
Back in Trinidad, Lucy disappears with Sandro, and Julie nurses Yawn-a-ten, as they pronounce his name here; other current nicknames for the baby include gordo (fat) and cachete (chubby cheeks)
3- Trestles and bridges
. I set out on a clandestine trip to pick up some cigars.You can't walk a block in most parts of Cuba without being offered "Fresh cigars? Cohibas?" These hucksters invariably offer bits of sawdust wrapped in an outer leaf, or in a good scenario, genuine but very stale cigars. I've asked around enough that I'm confident I've located the house in Trinidad for procuring some quality bootleg cigars. I don't smoke and have no real need for cigars, but I figure that if one wants to experience Cuba, one needs to do at least a few black market transactions. After a few glances up and down the streets, I'm lead into a waiting room.
Another set of tourists file out in front of me, and in the kitchen I'm confronted with a cornucopia of boxed and cased cigars. "These are too fresh," says my seller, as he unscrews the metal cylinder on a Romeo y Julieta cigar. There are Montecristos, Cohibas, Guantameras. I bend a few, blow in the ends to make the outer leaf puff, try to look like I know what I'm doing. I take an offer on a thin box of Cohibas and a fat set of Romeo y Julietas. I must have paid too much, because the guy even throws in some Montecristos for free. Only a cigar aficionado would know whether I got ripped off or not, but it's a lot of fun. I return to the casa feeling mysterious and naughty. I also wait until I'm out of the country before posting my outing online!
In atonement, I take Lucy to hang out with some Cuban kids in the street. She loves walking the larger cobblestones -- and they are literally stones--which run down the street centre. In rains, these form streambeds. Tonight, as every night, the streets fill with kids playing ball. The younger ones use water bottle caps as mini whiffle balls. They can flick them with precision to produce curves and drop balls. The batter uses a thin stick. These mini games happen across the width of a street. Other kids with mitts and an aged baseball tend to play the length of the road. No windows to break, and the high-sloped roofs simply roll the ball back unless it's really spanked into the next calle.
We chat with some kids about Canadian and Cuban weather until the light recedes up the street, then march home for our last dinner in Trinidad. Our coolest night in Cuba, we actually put blankets on the bed.
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