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Published: April 4th 2011
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Fidel’s Place
The Sierra Maestra Mountains
The Sierra Maestra Mountains are Cuba’s highest mountains, on the East of the island. We are stopping off here on the way to
Santiago De Cuba which will give me the chance to visit
Fidel Castro’s headquarters in the mountains from where he launched the Revolution.
Our tour bus takes us as far into the mountains as it can. From here we are to transfer to a “fleet” of 4WD taxis to take us up to our overnight hotel. There seems to be only four suitable taxis working this area so most of the group head off to the hotel while myself,
Graham and
Ernesto wait an hour for one of the taxis to return for a second trip. While we are waiting a strong thunderstorm breaks. We take shelter in a building that appears to have had all its windows removed and we find it quite difficult to find a place where the rain isn’t forcing itself into the building.
An old man cycling past decides to befriend me. After some unnecessary grovelling he asks me for a light, shows me some plant cuttings he has in his backpack and
asks me if I’m Italian. He then finds an empty beer can and plants his plant cuttings in it. When I ask
Ernesto what the plants are and why the old guy wants to grow them he decides that the most logical explanation is that the guy is drunk!
Eventually a taxi returns to take us to the hotel
Santo Domingo higher up in the mountains. The effects of the storm are clear as there is a lot of debris in the road which our taxi has to negotiate its way round. The hotel isn’t too exciting. When we arrive there is no electricity or water. This is probably because of the storm but even after the power is restored there is never more than a trickle of water in our bathroom {
despite the bathroom being flooded!}. And although there appears to be a solar panel on the roof of our chalet the water is always cold. However
Cat, my new best friend, is given another bottle of wine!
Comandancia De La Plata
The next morning we set out early to avoid walking at the hottest part of the day. The taxis collect us and
Fidel's House
He had a fridge!! we continue on up what is claimed to be Cuba’s steepest road {
and I believe them!} gaining about another 1000m in height until we reach the end of the road.
From here we trek into the mountains for about another 1.5 hours, passing the farms of some of the farmers who befriended Fidel, until we reach the headquarters of the Revolutionaries.
It’s incredible to think that there were just 12 survivors from
Granma who made it here {
and only 7 of them had weapons!} and yet they still succeeded! The site has been preserved fairly much as it was with the addition of a museum building. I’m a bit disillusioned to find out that Fidel had a fridge in his house, though!
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