Santa Clara
This isn’t quite how I pictured the Caribbean island. Suffice to say Cubans aren’t that interested in hockey – this bar is packed with the most recent planeload of Canadians to descend on the tropical paradise. But while hundreds of thousands of Canadians fly to the communist country every year, few manage to prise themselves from the golden beaches and warm – yes, warm – sea. After two weeks of backpacking around this perplexing, challenging and deeply moving country, I came back with a mission: to convince my fellow Canucks to leave Resortland, and get to know the real Cuba. Santa Clara is near the heart of Cuba, both geographically and spiritually, and makes for a great daytrip from Varadero (it’s about three hours by bus), though I would highly recommend at least one night in a casa particulare – Cuba’s answer to the B&B. A busy little town of 210,000 people, it was here in December 1958 that the world’s most famous revolutionary, Ernesto “Che” Guevara (the brooding, beret-wearing face on a thousand T-shirts and posters), scored a wily victory over the dying regime of Fulgencio Batista. With just 18 men, Fidel Castro’s key ally in the Cuban Revolution captured an army train carrying 350 heavily armed soldiers, taking the troops and their weapons. Che used a cute yellow bulldozer to break the tracks down the line, and the speeding train derailed when it hit the gap.
Less than 12 hours later, the hated dictator fled and Castro began his slow victory march to Havana. The train, still lying where it crashed, has been turned into a modest museum, complete with a replica Canada Dry Molotov cocktail, and the bulldozer sits proudly on a chunk of concrete. A 20-minute walk outside of town takes you to the Che Guevara monument and mausoleum, where the Argentine rebel is buried. A giant statue of Che stands guard, and the mausoleum has a nice museum – plus, it’s air-conditioned. Enough said. Jump in a rickshaw-style bicycle-taxi and bump back downtown to Parque Vidal to have a look at the Hotel Santa Clara Libre – the front wall is still pock-marked with bullets from one of the last battles of the revolution, when Batista’s soldiers holed up inside while Che and his men attacked from the square. At night, take the elevator to the rooftop bar on the 11th floor and have a drink overlooking the city. As you wander home, you can see the moon, and all of the stars, but probably not your accommodation – Santa Clara, like most Cuban cities, has very few street lights. When you want an adventure in Cuba, sit down. I put this philosophy to the test in Santa Clara one afternoon and soon enough a man in clothes that were a few months away from being rags asked for a light. We got to chatting – he spoke perfect English and his name, of course, was Ernesto. Aged 26, he worked in a bakery to support his wife and daughter, and he looked absolutely shattered. I asked him why he was so tired – he explained that while on paper he works five eight-hour shifts a week, in reality that means five 12-hour shifts. For example, the previous night the power had gone out for four hours – but they still had to make the bread, so the shift ended up stretching from 8pm to 8am. He gave me a tour of his Santa Clara – “I love it and I hate it” – leading me down backstreets past tiny homes packed with three generations of families. One young woman I met lived in a two-bedroom apartment with her parents, sister and grandmother. With understandable exasperation, she told me that sharing a bed with your grandmother adds serious complications to your love life. Santa Clara also has a little cigar factory, which provides tours in English. First published in the Halifax Daily News May 5, 2007.
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The talk at the bar in Varadero, Cuba, is all about the Halifax Mooseheads, who have just been eliminated from the QMJHL playoffs.