Camaguey is a two hour drive from Sancti Spiritus, the driver got lost in the one way, narrow labyrinth that is the old town. He stopped and asked a policeman for directions that was standing on the roadside. After a lot of arm movements, pointing and gestures, we were off again.
It was a feast day and they had shut off some of the roads making it even more difficult to navigate. The Operator was trying to help with his offline maps but the GPS wasn’t working today over Camaguey and we had to rely on good old fashioned help from the street. This looks promising said the driver, we rounded a corner and there was the same policeman…back around we went.
He left us on a street corner with our suitcases saying he couldn’t get any further into the old town in the car. Our Casa should be just around that corner he said…yeah right, we couldn’t find it. Rosie sat in the gutter with her suitcase next to her and The Operators maps suddenly pinged into life… the driver wasn’t to far wrong, we were just a couple of streets away.
The street was pretty old yet the casa of Edwardo y Geraldine was super modern and newly renovated. We were greated by the cleaning girl who spoke a little English, she did our paperwork and said the rooms would be ready in half an hour. We had never seen such a modern huge place as this in any of stays in Cuba. The family of 4 plus the parents lived in a wing off to the side with their own private staircase.
The casa had 4 rented rooms, plus multiple outdoor courtyards, balconies and an enormous covered roof terrace, Edwardo had even installed a flash bar area. The kitchen we could see was tiled and spacious with all the mod cons. The furniture was leather and the table tops were glass. Everything was gleaming and spotlessly clean, they had a lot of staff, there were a couple of cleaners and a couple of other girls that did the breakfast for the guests in the morning.
Mama was a lovely lady that spoke no English at all, but she tried to interact and make herself understood as much as possible. Mama seemed to do all the cooking for the family and the smells that came out of that kitchen were heavenly. Edwardo even had a garage with an electric roller door in it to keep the car in, totally unheard of! A brand new sport motorbike was parked in the lounge…these Cubans were certainly living better than any others we had seen on our travels. The modern facilities certainly didn’t reflect on the price of our rooms which had all the mod cons and comforts – $35cuc per night for the room.
Out in the streets of Camaguey Rosie instantly liked this town, it was another normal, working town, people were going about their business all around you and the tourists were there but not as noticable.
Situated in the center of the island, Camaguey is the third largest Cuban city with a population of 321,000. The city has a labyrinth of winding alleyways and streets that lead to either plazas or dead ends and is totally confusing.
The reasoning behind this town planning…some say, was to make the city more defendable against raiders. With only one way in and the same way out of town, the locals could defend the entrance/exit themselves and catch any looters as they left. The locals however, dispell this myth and say that in actual fact the city just evolved without any thought or planning as everyone wanted to live as close to their local church as possible, of which there are 15 in the city, hence the compact crazy layout.
Not far from the Casa was the Plaza Los Troubadours, WIFI central for all browsers and a place where locals and visitors alike liked to gather.
This large square is a central hub to get to most places in Camaguey and always has a alot of people in it sitting on steps talking loudly into mobile phones or browsing the net. Looking around the square the architechture spans a few hundred years, starting with the beautiful church and finishing with the brightly coloured boxy office blocks.
Looking down over it all is the broody gaze of Che Guervara who is never far from thoughts and view.
The Plaza is the place to hire your bicci taxi from, there are always heaps circling. Rosie was getting good at this now, we hired Alex, a strapping young lad to take us on a 10km circuit for approximately 2.5 hours. As before, we gave a list of places we wanted to visit and negotiated a price of $10cuc. For that price we would wander around the places and take photos whilst Alex would wait for us to return.
We noticed today there were a lot of guys setting up on the footpaths with what looked like hand held flamethrower type machines. The ends were all charred looking and they had pick axes with them….’crikey’, said The Operator I think they are road workers, looks like they are going to heat up the asphalt and start repairing the road.
We didnt think anything of it…on our way to our first destination we noticed smoke coming out of a building, the smoke was leching out around the door frame and wafting out through the shut shutters….a crowd in the street was watching and no one seemed agitated or alarmed, they were just watching.
Rosie and The Operator were getting a bit excited that the building was on fire…any fire in these close quarters and it would spread like…well…wildfire. Alex who seemed to be able to understand more English than he could speak…was shaking his head and saying ‘no,no fire’. He then pinched at his arm multiple times and slapped it. Rosie loves these charades we play here….oooooh, they are fumigating for bugs!
Rosie is instantly itchy. We see now, a few of the guys wearing the same uniforms carrying the ‘flamethrowers’ that were actually fogging machines…the pick axes? well, they seem a tad drastic.
The fumigators exit a house with smoke billowing out behind them and shut the door, thank goodness they are wearing protection from the chemicals…yes, that paper surgical mask should do the trick. The fumigators are all over the place and are even in some cafes and restaurants…it dosn’t seem to be a pre planned thing either…they are just turning up. Are Rosie and the Operator in the middle of an epidemic…we are both very itchy feeling now, lucky all the action is going on a long way from our Casa.
This is Plaza del Carmen, the most Spanish looking square in town, the bronze statues in this square are representations of everyday life here in Camaguey, made by the renowned Cuban artist Martha Jimenez.
The most popular one is the man sitting on a bench in the square reading the newspaper, he is an actual resident of the area that comes to the square everyday…to read the paper.
There is also a couple canoodling together and a trio of gossiping woman. Yep, we have seen these exact scenes many times over throughout the whole of Cuba.
They certainly are typical scenes seen in every square countrywide. There is a souvenir market setting up in the neighboring square, Rosie will be back, she wants to do her souvenir shopping in one place all at once.
Alex pedals us next to the Camaguey Necropolis, it is not far from the center of town and it is still early.
Flower sellers have set up outside the gates and are selling posies to place on your loved ones grave. A grand gated entrance next to the church welcomes you in and an avenue with side streets off it take you deep into this labyrinth which is the size of a city on its own.
The tombs are bleached white marble and everything looks a little chaotic and jumbled. Look closer and you have family plots and additions which are added to the main tomb and are remembered on little monumental stone book pages that sit on top of the main tomb.
It is a beautiful place to visit, Rosie does love her cemeteries, small pops of colour amongst the white stones marks a recent floral remembrance and visitation. Rosie would love to wander more, but the heat amongst these stones is amazing and Alex is waiting.
We are heading next to the locals food market, the Mercado Agropecuario Hatibonico. This is the early bird market where the locals of town do their fruit and vegetable shopping, a sea of bikes are parked at this market, the ground is muddy and wet and dogs roam between the stalls.
Off cuts from trimmings are strewn everywhere, it is very basic and confronting, we are certainly the only tourists wandering around here, Rosie takes some sneaky snaps and we are off again.
Alex drops us off in the Plaza San Juan de Dios, we find a cool bar for a refreshment break and watch the world. A couple of small souvenir stalls have set up here and Rosie buys clay model replicas of the church in this square and some 60s style cars.
In the middle of town is Cinema Street, a beautiful recreation and renovation of the movie houses of old from the 40s/50s.
It borders on the Gran Hotel area, one of the flash hotels in town where Americans and the well healed tend to stay. The whole area is newly sanitised, paved and painted, super clean with plenty of cafes and eateries abound.
This is another area ‘cleaned up’ for the tourists and feels a little fake and not really an area Rosie wants to linger in.
The Operator is on a mission to buy cigars and rum to take home with us tomorrow. We went into the beautiful humidity controlled cigar shop of the Gran Hotel, it was as fancy as. The Operator just wanted a look, he said he wasn’t going to buy anything from there as it would be way to expensive…..it wasn’t. The Operator has been taking note of prices all over the island….they are the same everywhere. From the fanciest Hotel, like what we were in now to the grungiest corner shop, communism, you have to love it! The beauty of the fancy Hotel, the posh guy selling cigars and rum there could speak perfect English and was a wealth of information when it came to selection. So much better than buying from the corner shop.
On the top of the hotel is a terrace bar, open to non residents. It gives a lovely view over the city, and, whilst having a rum The Operator cracked open his new cigar purchase and had a smoke….really?! We were laughing so much, all I could think of was Boss Hog from the Dukes of Hazzard as he puffed away.
What an incredible time we have had in Cuba! The sights, the sounds, the people, we have been so lucky to experience this authentic culture before it changes too much. We wander back to our non epidemic, non fumigated part of town and head to our favorite local restaurant that we have visited a few times.
It was great sitting there, looking out the window as the sun set, reminiscing about our glorious holiday in Cuba.
Rosie has some tips to make your stay in Cuba easier, don’t forget to check out her Cuban Musings.
