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Published: November 8th 2014
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Castillo de Jagua
Photo by Kathryn MacDonald© Mass tourism has robbed travel of its adventure. If you yearn to escape tourism and become a traveller,
Travel Notebook Learning Adventure will show you how. Through writing – which encourages you to experience and to transform that experience into words – and photography – which encourages you to seeand to frame a subject – we go beyond casual observation. Join writer Kate and photographer James, along with local guides and friends for 10 days in Cienfuegos and surrounding countryside.
Travel Notebook Learning Adventure Photography: capture the essence of people and place
Writing: transform experience into story
(and have fun too) Cienfuegos: People & Place (January 23-February 1 2015) Bahía de Jagua/Jagua Bay, once a hideout for pirates the likes of Henry Morgan and Francis Drake, became a refuge for James and me as we sailed up the long neck of water into the harbour and Cienfuegos perched at its furthest point. After four exhausting days and nights sailing across a stormy Caribbean Sea, Jagua Bay (also called Cienfuegos Bay) provided a reprieve…and more.
On our way inland, we sailed past Castillo de Jagua,
Teatro Tomas Terry
Photo by Kathryn MacDonald© overlooking the mouth of the bay. The limestone fortress was built in 1742 by King Philip V of Spain as a defense against the many pirates who plundered the Caribbean. A legend began when the fortress was new and the tale continues to be told of the shadow of an elegant woman dressed in blue – the “Blue Lady” – who walks the passage from the chapel to the high walls of the castle. Whether this lingering story has something to do with a Spanish soldier or a pirate, I cannot say. I did not see her. But Spanish legend is not alone in surviving the centuries.
Jagua, the native name for the region, connotes the mystery of now extinct Taino people. One of the myths that lives on involves the story of a moonbeam whose caress of a fruit created jagua, a fruit-bearing tree that was once abundant but is now rare. (An image of the jagua tree is central on the city’s coat of arms.) Jagua, means beginning or source. For us, Jagua Bay was the beginning of an idyllic reprieve from wild waves. The 22km-long passage terminates at the Jagua Marina where we disembarked to walk
Mirador Tower
Photo by James Archbold© along the maleçon/seawall to the UNESCO-designated historical city.
Cuba celebrates its heroes, and in Cienfuegos the central Parque Marti honours the liberator and poet José Marti (1853-1895). The park is surrounded by impressive, historically important buildings, including the
Teatro Tomás Terry where Caruso once sang and the
Palacio de Ferrer that is now a cultural center. The former Palacio is topped with a
mirador tower. The tower provides a magnificent overview of the park with its arco de triunfo/arc of triumph that commemorates the founding of the Republic of Cuba (1902), the city, and the bay.
Established in 1819, Cienfuegos’s first settlers were French from Bordeaux and colonies such as Louisiana. It surpasses all other Cuban cities for its neoclassical architecture. Cienfuegos also holds surprises like the day we asked a bicitaxi to pedal us to Cementerio General La Reina where we rambled among tombs and marvelous sculptures celebrating the revolutionary dead of by-gone eras.There is much diversity in this city of 145,000 to explore, experience, write about, and to photograph.
A short distance from the city of Cienfuegos, through old sugar estates, participants in the workshop will travel
Egret
Photo by Kathryn MacDonald© to El Nicho, located in the municipality of Cumanayagua. After hiking along a maintained trail, we will enjoy a swim at the base of the Black Creek Waterfall. Flora lovers will want to seek out some of the 65 native species of plants as we wind our way back to our transportation. Again, we will find much to research, write about, and to photograph.
This is a little sampling of my adventure and a hint of what lies ahead for you.
For more information, please visit
Travel Notebook Learning Adventures at
www.travelnotebook.ca. Thanks.
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