Day 7: Santiago de Cuba II

After another nice breakfast on the terrace we strolled up to the Parque Cespedes, the main square in the old town, named after one of Cuba's heroes (there are a lot, from the many battles for independence). We went to the Cubatour (government tourism) office located there, to get a bus ticket for Baracoa, our next place. Nothing for tomorrow, so we got one for Monday. D also used the phone to get a reserve' at a Casa Particular, and we arranged for a taxi trip today to the Castillo de San Pedro de la Roca del Morro, aka Morro, including a visit to Cayo Granma.

The Castillo (on the left in the photo), designed in 1587 but not finished until the early 1700s, and built to defend the city from pillaging pirates, sits at the very narrow entrance to the Bahia de Santiago de Cuba,




and yes, that's how narrow the entrance is, as seen in this view from the fort - good for a calm harbor, but also for a blockade, which is how the US destroyed the Spanish navy in the Spanish Cuban-American war (as they refer to it here, "Spanish-American War" in the US history books). The Spanish ships tried to escape, but could only go one at a time, and so all were picked off by the US ships, except one that the Spanish beached.



We had an excellent, and free, English-speaking guide, Sandra, who obviously would be very underemployed as a guide in most other countries, but like many educated folks in Cuba, she has gone where the money is.

The fort looks formidable.....










but one of its claims to fame is that it was sacked by the British privateer Henry Morgan. A cool little museum had a lot of info on pirates and privateers, including the derivation of the terms "buccaneer" and "filibuster" (requires long explanations, Google 'em please), and a display of pirate flag images actually used.



It had a number of interesting features, among them this ammo ramp - the cart moved up it, via a rope pulled by horses.



When privateering died out, the complex was converted to a prison, where many Cuban revolutionary heroes were kept. Cuba's various repressive regimes presumably needed a lot of prisons.

We also visited Cayo Granma, named for the boat Fidel Castro used in his retreat to establish a base in the Oriente mountains - called "Granma" because they actually got it from a Granma. The province where they disembarked is now also called Granma for that reason. The Cayo has the church at the top at the center-left in the photo. Sadly, it lost most of its stilt waterfront, and charm, in Hurricane Sandy.




In the afternoon we visited another "heroes of the revolution" museum, which I liked mainly for the beautiful building it was in..







and for a map showing the rebel battlefronts and campaigns in the Castro-led revolution.

We also went back into Tivoli, to the Casa de Las Tradicionales, where there was live music, with an enthusiastic audience.

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The symbolism of folks singing in the midst of the poor Tivoli area, far from the wealthy, capitalizing hills, was too strong to miss.

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Yet, also strong was the feeling that we were completely safe with, accepted, and maybe even included by these folks, with their dominoes in the street on the corner...



(the blue fronted place up the street was the Casa de la Tradicionales, the kids playing basketball...

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and the adult panhandlers asking for soap, and the kids for soap or pens.

We finished the day with a walk down Heredia, Santiago de Cuba's Treme', and managed to catch three distinct styles. Guess which was D's favorite.

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Location:Santiago de Cuba