The alarm went off at 5:30 this morning or rather my ipad was saying it was 5:30, it turns out that the clocks changed in Cuba last night but no one told us! Luckily technology is on the ball We were being collected at 8:30 for our day trip so we went down to breakfast then wondered if we should be ready at 7:30 or 8:30, as it turns out Carlos our guide had arrived at 7:30 in case we didn’t know the clocks had changed but didn’t come into the hotel until 8:30 so I am not quite sure how that was meant to work! However the day got significantly better, we started by driving towards the Sierra Maestra Mountain range. On the way to the top we stopped at the Botanical Gardens which is actually a state run nursery who sell flowers to the florists in Santiago de Cuba, all the same it was very nice walking round and they have some lovely plants including the one that the garden is named after unfortunately I cant remember what it was called but the flower is very pretty and it does look a bit like a bird and i am sure the bird would be lovely as well. They had a nice collection of orchids including a black one which is very small as well as a plant that smells just like peppermint! From here we drove to the foot of what is called the world’s largest monolith (not sure if they have heard of Aires rock! ) La Gran Piedra or the Great Stone is of ‘unexplained’ origins, perched on a mountain ridge although the explanation we were given sounds plausible which was it was a volcano that was quickly cooled by the rain, all the same we started climbing the stairs to the top for what should be fantastic views into the municipality of Guantanamo and Santiago de Cuba, unfortunately as we started climbing it started raining so when we finally finished climbing the 485 steps we couldn’t really see anything at all! Luckily while we were at the top the cloud cleared a little and we got a good view of the Caribbean Sea apparently on a good day you can see the coast of Haiti and Jamaica but not today. We came back down and continued our slavery theme this year by going to a coffee plantation La Isabelica, this was founded in colonial times by a French refugee from Haiti who arrived in Cuba after the slavery uprising in Haiti and purchased a lot of land in the Sierra Maestra area, he brought with him around 30 slaves including his ‘wife’ who was a slave that he never freed as he was worried she would move away which begs the question how willing a bride she was. After the revolution in the 1870s he fled to America and the plantation was abandoned it was restored in 1961 and became a museum as the buildings were not in too bad condition however in 2008 Hurricane Sandy came through and caused a lot of damage which has meant that they have had to rebuild again. We were shown the coffee drying station and the equipment used to remove the pulp from the beans we walked around the house which had some nice furniture but downstairs they had a display of both the equipment used in the planting and harvesting of coffee but also the punishment of the slaves including a hole in the ground which was designed for the belly of pregnant slaves when they were being punished, if they were being flogged they would lay face down with their stomach in the hole which would ensure the baby, ie future slave, wasn’t damaged while the punishment was being ministered. We also saw the ruins of a slave cabin where four domestic slaves slept in a room that was only just bigger than our bathroom! After walking round the plantation buildings we set off for lunch in a local restaurant then drove back down the mountain to Castillo del Morro, this is at the entrance to the Bay of Santiago, 10km from the city and quite near to the airport. As you walk up to it it doesn’t look very impressive but once inside it is built into the side of the mountain so is actually about four floors. It was designed in 1638 by Giovanni Antonella for the governor who wanted to defend the city against pirate raids. Large enough to house 400 soldiers when it was built the castle was converted into a prison in 1776, it became a fortress again in 1898 during the wars of independence. The US fleet patrolled the coast and seemed to take out all of the Spanish ships. We couldn’t enter across the drawbridge as it was damaged and still not repaired – the story of Cuba, so we climbed down the steps into the moat and up the wooden staircase the other side. There are a few rooms inside that have information about the various pirates who operated in the area which interestingly include Francis Drake, not sure that I ever knew he was a pirate but I suppose it rather depends on your point of view, if you are Cuban (or South American) and Drake turns up to take your gold and goods then I suppose your history will record him as a pirate. The one thing the fort definitely has is great views of the bay of Santiago. It shows how sheltered it is and you can fully understand why it is a port as it provides protection from the prevailing winds. After walking round we set off for our final stop which was the Santa Ifigenia cemetery to see the changing of the guard at the tombs of the hero’s of the Revolution. This had originally started as the changing of the guard at Jose Marti’s Mausoleum but has now expanded to include the Mother of the Nation and Castro as well as the revolutionary hero’s from both of the wars of independence. We arrived just in time to see the changing of the guard which is very similar to the display that takes place at Lenin’s tomb in Russia although this happens every 30 minutes from 6am to 6pm, I think the one in Russia only happens a couple of times a day. We watched from the road as we were not allowed any nearer and I have to say it is quite impressive, they march to music which may be the Cuban national anthem but I am not sure and are very synchronised. Once the guard had changed and the previous guard returned to their barracks we were allowed to go and look at the tombs. By far the most impressive is that of Jose Marti who was the first significant revolutionary hero in Cuba, every town has a statue of him and most also have a square dedicated to him. His mausoleum was only actually built in the 1940s but it is massive, it contains representations of all the ‘free’ countries in the Americas as well as reliefs that represent Cuba. Next to him is a stone that was taken from the Sierra Maestra mountain that contains the ashes of Fidel Castro, the love and respect still shown for him is surprising to me but they all think that he was the saviour of Cuba and wish that he was still around. We also looked at the tombs of the revolutionary soldiers that died in the various fights for independence then as a complete change we walked round behind these tombs and there are the family tombs of the Bacardi family who were one of the richest families in the area but after the revolution Castro nationalised all the industry and the Bacardi family fled to America. By the time we had finished walking round the changing of the guard had started again so we watched it but this time we were standing next to the tomb of Jose Marti so we could see them walk right past us. After the guard had changed we headed back to the car and were taken back to the hotel. We got back about 4pm after a very full day so decided to stay in the hotel for a few drinks and possibly something to eat once we had uploaded the pictures and the blog.
