Cuba: Cienfuegos to Holguin

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It is the second time in a week I’ve passed through Santa Clara where statues, billboards, and murals of Che Guevara grace the cityscape and countryside. We caught the bus in Cienfuegos and now mull around Santa Clara’s bus station waiting for our connection on to Holguin. Ours is not one of the sleek tourist buses. We have chosen to ride with Cubans on the older “Made in China” buses where the air conditioning blasts icy drafts that make everyone search through carry-on bags for sweaters and blankets. At Santa Clara, it is good to step down into natural heat…a little perspiration beats goose bumps any day.

Che’s image covers a wall of the bus enclosure. He is especially revered here, the city in which he led troupes in the last battle against Batista’s army, the battle that ended the revolution (after which Batista fled into exile). There’s something haunting about this image: determination in his eyes? his sensual mouth? The ballad, Comandante Che Guevara, echoes around in my head. Like the image, words and melody linger, ghostlike.

Eventually, after exchanging our reservation for actual tickets (a bureaucratic nightmare), we submit our luggage to the scales again, and reboard the same bus that had carried us from Cienfuegos. We set out for Holguin where we again disembark; it is the end of the bus-line. At Holguin, a taxi driver meets us on the steps before we can even get our bearings. He suggests a casa particulare and off we go through the city, but before he leaves us arrangements are made to drive us the 200 kilometres to Moa in the morning. Our hostess gets us settled and points us in the direction of the central park surrounded by shops and restaurants. We hope for a coffee. The nightlife has started and music ricochets out of open windows and doorways. Bicycles and motorbikes circle round and round, ridden by bored looking young men.

In the morning, after a delicious breakfast of tree-ripened fruit, eggs, toast, juice and coffee, the tired Lada arrives. Our luggage is stowed and we climb in with the driver and his friend (company on the return trip) and head toward the Moa on Cuba’s northeastern Atlantic shore.

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Photos

Che Guivara mural; Santa Clara
Che Guivara mural; Santa Clara bus station.
Photo: Kathryn MacDonald©

Holguin’s central park, like others we have seen, sports classical statues, benches beneath shade-trees, and immaculate walkways and gardens.
Photo: Kathryn MacDonald©