Santa Clara....Hi-di-hi, comrade

  Santa Clara, Cuba
Friday, April 18, 2008

 

Thursday 17th April - we left Trinidad and were driven to Santa Clara, in the centre of Cuba.  We were only there for one night.  Thank the Lord.  Rather than put us up in a hotel in the town centre (more later), we were booked into, errrrr, a state-run holiday camp on the edge of town.  The room, described as 'modelled on a pre-Colombian style' (i.e. based on a 500 year old design) was spartan and mosquito ridden, with rock hard beds and threadbare towels.  A quick bite to eat by the pool at lunchtime confirmed our worst fears.  The food was terrible.  Still, we had sunshine and a swimming pool, and the delight of watching a group of very uneasy looking new arrivals from France, trying to take it all in.
 







In the afternoon we took a walk into town.  By now, we were really in timewarp Cuba, with 4 out of 5 taxis being horses and carts.
 
The town of Santa Clara is most famous for being the site of the last great battle of the revolution, when Che Guevara and co. liberated it on New Year's Eve, 1958.  On the following day back in Havana, President Batista quickly handed over power to whoever was standing next to him at the time, jumped on a plane and demanded to be taken away from Cuba (together with most of the contents of the treasury).  As I understand it, he spent most of the rest of his life selling life assurance in Spain.  Just as well they didn't have timeshares back in those days or who knows how he would have ended up.
 
As part of the battle to liberate Santa Clara, the rebels had to overcome a Government Armoured train.  They did so using that infallible anti-armoured-train device, a bulldozer.  Said bulldozer and five carriages from the train, most on their sides, are still on display in central Santa Clara today.  
 
It was to Santa Clara, the site of his last rebel action in Cuba, that the remains of Che were returned.  The burial site of the handless skeleton (he was wounded and captured by government forces in the jungle in Bolivia, then murdered the following day.  His hands were cut off and sent back to Argentina for fingerprint identification.  Well, he didn't need them anymore) had been discovered in the 90s under an airstrip.
 
The Che memorial, containing his remains and topped with a statue, also contains a museum to the man.  Once again, I was struck by the intensity of his beliefs.  Really, this 40 year old asthmatic shouldn't have been wandering around the jungles of the world trying to ferment revolution through guerrilla warfare, he should have been representing Cuba at the UN, being charismatic and living up to his photo.  But no, he wouldn't be happy until the peasants of the world were free, fed, educated, healthy and united.
 





After a quick homage to Che, we went into the city centre square, where we saw the Theatre where Caruso once sang, and the Hotel where we didn't stay.  I won't dwell on it, suffice to say it looked very 50s - Moscow.  Overall, Santa Clara looked very tired and worn out.
 
We went back to dinner at Los Caneyes holiday camp.  As soon as we entered the food hall - a great cavern of a place and a food hall, not a restaurant -  I could hear the  clatter of crockery and cutlery, overlaid with the loud buzz of chatter of sixty or so diners that took me back forty five years to a Dawlish Warren holiday camp.  The difference was the musical trio wandering amongst us and serenading the diners.  That and the absence in Devon all those years ago of Spanish and (confused) French accents.
 
Dinner was a buffet and bearable - certainly better than the previous night's effort in Trinidad.  We drank enough wine to sleep easy, then departed for an early night amongst the mosquitoes.  The next morning we breakfasted early, just to get out of the room. 
 
Following the tolerable dinner, breakfast was truly terrible.  I've never before eaten grey scrambled eggs - and I didn't want to start now.  So we avoided all but a slice of toast and a cup of warm coffee and got ready to set off again, this time for a bit of luxury (hopefully!) on an island - Cay   Ensenachos - a couple of hours drive away and just off the north coast of Cuba. 


 
We had seen tourist Cuba for the locals, and had sniffily rejected it out of hand, like the pampered westerners we were.  As a farewell parting shot, the taxi driver that took us to our next hotel, the Royal Hideaway, was an hour late and couldn't have cared less.  Mind you, nor could I.  After a night at Los Caneyes, I had just about lost the will to live. 
 
I'd like to think that it wasn't the bad food or the mosquitoes, but they had  a lot to do with it.  Certainly the camp's run-down nature seemed to perfectly complement the overall attitude of the staff, although there were some notable exceptions, like the receptionist who took on the case of the missing taxi driver with a dogged determination that would have impressed Colombo (the TV detective, not the Italian explorer with about 85 surname spellings that everyone and his brother is obsessed with west of Galway).
 
Perhaps our tourist attitude was all wrong....I honestly don't know. All I felt was a longing for a sandy beach, and some trepidation about what to expect next.