Cuba Diaries Week 8: March 8, 2009 - March 15, 2009
This is a personal account of my semester in Cuba.

ALYSSA CAMPBELL
EspreeNet News Service

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Most of this week went by in a big blur so I can’t really remember what happened when.. So I will just talk about the week in general. I am pretty sure that all day Monday I was in class- which was actually ok because we discussed interesting information about the US involvement in Cuba which led up to the Revolution. Hearing it from the Cuban perspective is so interesting.

Tuesday after class we all hung out on the beach all day and met some funny Italian family who were on vacation, we chilled with them for a while and then headed back home.

Wednesday the two original members from the Buena Vista social club who are still alive gave a free concert near my residence..Later that night my residence was filled with a bunch of rowdy Cubans watching the Cuban baseball games, they seemed to be having a party equivalent to our super bowl parties.

I don’t remember much of Thursday except for the beach again.

WEEKEND TRIP
On Friday after class we headed to the bus station to make our weekend getaway to Vinales. I went with Louisa, Kassie, Alison, Drew, and Alec.

When we got there we went and found this great Casa Particular to stay at with this old woman.. The room was PEPTOBISMOL pink including curtains, walls, and even the sheets, it was like a Barbie house! We had two beds, and breakfast included for $10/night each. We also decided to eat dinner at the residence for $7… The people and the food in Vinales were wonderful! Everywhere we went people were so friendly, and there was such a community feel throughout the small town. The food—ridiculous. For dinner the first night we had fried chicken, rice and beans, fried platanos, yucca, cucumbers, tomatoes, papaya, oranges, watermelon, and a lot of it! We had to try to eat it all in about 3 courses.

For breakfast the first day we had fresh eggs, fresh bread, more fruit, great coffee, and fresh squeezed pineapple juice, again in abundance. It was a great breakfast for the long day that was ahead of us.

We met up with a guy that offered to give us an all day tour/hike around Vinales to see the tobacco plantations, mountains and caves. The hike was not a tourist one, and was technically by Cuban standards, illegal, but he promised to take us to a lot of cool places to see parts of Vinales that is harder to see on the more expensive tourist excursions. I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I signed on to this hike, but in the end it was more than worth it..

We started the hike at 930am when the temperature was about 83degrees.. We walked through a little shanty town neighborhood until we reached a steep stone staircase on the side of a mountain range that we climbed, then walked through a dark cave to the other side to see a huge field and started walking a dirt path towards the tobacco plantations. We walked about 4 miles of tobacco plantations and farms, learning about the crops, looking at the animals, and talking to a few campesinos along the way. We made a little dog friend who followed us for about the first hour, until he ran into a herd of goats and caused them to stampede across one of the seemingly endless tobacco fields.. Around 1130 we stopped at one tobacco plantation for a little break inside of what was basically a chicken coup. A lady there gave us some fresh squeezed Sugar Cane to drink that she squeezed from some antiquated machine that she had. It was cool to see her make the juice, although the juice itself didn’t taste that great. Her husband lit a cigar he had made from his tobacco leaves and shared it with a few people in my group so they could taste a fresh Cuban cigar.

After the rest we headed back out to continue our hike in the hot sun with little to no shade… We walked around more, admiring the beautiful scenery of the Cuban countryside until about 1pm when we reached another mountain range and our guide suddenly didn’t know how to get up the mountain. He had promised to take us to the Cuevas (Caves) to let us swim, so we got a little concerned when he seemed a little lost after being in the sun for so long and the temp now being in the 90s.. He left for a few minutes while 5 of us shared a bread bun and a few peanut bars, and returned with another campesinos who he said would lead us up the mountain side.. The man, in his mid 40s, told us to follow him, and reluctantly we did.

First he went to a bull in a field and stole the rope that he was tied to his fence with, then he had us walk through some bushes and we started climbing with him up the side of a steep and tree field mountain with a stolen rope. Oh what were we getting into?! We finally make it to a ledge on the mountain, slide across a thin edge to another ledge, and watch him tie the rope to a big boulder and then throw the other end into a dark hole…. He looks at us and says “Ok, now just climb down one at a time and wait for me to come, this is the cave you guys can swim in”. We looked at him like he was losing his ever loving mind, and I said immediately “No, gracias, Voy a Esperar aqui. (No thanks, im just gonna wait here)”.. So he decides to go down first to allow us to see that its relatively safe… After some coaxing I slide down the rope about 30 feet into the dark, and then down a rickety ladder into the dark abyss that is the swim cave..

I couldn’t believe that I was actually doing something this dangerous.

I never would have seen myself in Cuba in March 2009 in 90 degree weather, scaling the side of a mountain, and climbing into a deep dark cave with an old rope given to me by some sketchy Cuban Campesinos! But I did it! Once we all got into the cave, we walked around the cave in pitch black, with just one flashlight holding hands for about 800 feet until we reached another cliff and climber down another old rickety ladder. Once we climbed down that ladder, we realized that the voyage was “vale la pena” without a doubt… At the foot of the ladder was a beautifully clear pool of mineral water in the bottom of the cave. It was so peaceful and serene. The first thing I did was take a ton of pictures of the water and the cave, and the next thing I did was dive into the water to cool myself down from that dry heat that was overwhelming me.

The water seemed magical, it was so refreshing and beautiful.. I feel like natural sights like this cave, this mineral water, these mountain ranges that we just climbed would make it impossible to not believe there is a God. It was so heavenly to me. I sat in the water and just thought about how wondrous it was.. And I think what made it even better was the melodic song that our guide began singing in Spanish that sounded a lot like an old spiritual. It was an amazing experience. I was so happy to have pushed myself pass my fears and comfort and go through all this danger to see something so spectacular.

After we left the cave, we climbed back down the mountain and did some more hiking. Our hike ended around 5pm- yes a 7.5 hour hike! I was exhausted but it was worth every bit of dehydration that I suffered, and every bit of dirt on my clothes and body, horse poop on my sneakers, and scars on my legs to see something so beautiful and accomplish something I never even imagined myself doing! I was rewarded with a huge fish dinner back at my Casa Particular, and later that night we went to the town square to watch people of all ages dance to salsa and Reggatone.

I love seeing the people here dance because its such a community experience. There was a group of little girls (maybe 6-9 years) teaching each other Salsa and dancing with little boys, and then there were some older couples out dancing to the same music—my favorite was the old drunk man who kept trying to teach the teenagers old dances, particularly break dancing techniques. The next day I went to a pool on a mountain to see a great view of the mountain ranges around and got some great pictures..

For the rest of the day I played with a dog and read my book until the bus left back for Havana.

It was a great weekend.. This island is beautiful. And it makes me learn about myself in so many ways.. Now I can see how far I can push myself, and next time I will push myself even further! Its so fun to be adventurous and live a little on the edge! Not only am I growing in maturity, I am pushing myself to new limits and learning more about myself and things in the world , outside of the US that I love!


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Since the fall of the US-backed dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista in 1959 Cuba has been a one-party state led by Pres Fidel Castro and - since February 2008 - by his annointed successor, younger brother Raul.

Full name: Republic of Cuba
Population: 11.3 million (UN 2008)
Capital: Havana
Major language: Spanish
Major religion: Christianity
Internet domain: .cu

Life expectancy:
76 years (men), 80 years (women) (UN)
Main exports:
Nickel, sugar, tobacco, shellfish, medical products, citrus, coffee
The Press
Granma - official Communist Party newspaper, online version in five languages including English












Published March 15, 2009

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