Santiago de Cuba

We took a teeny weeny prop plane across the island to Santiago de Cuba, on the eastern side. This is a smaller, less touristy town, which was at one point the capital before it reverted back to Havana. 

The boarding pass and luggage tags were handwritten, and the seat assignments were only suggestions, as we were told to sit wherever we wanted once we boarded. As usual with prop planes, it seemed to jump into the air really steeply, and soon we were zooming at cloud level towards SdC. Likewise, we dipped down to the tarmac at the other end at turbo speed, fishtailing a bit as we landed. Phew!

Our B&B is the delightful Hostel Girasol, which is 3 and a half storeys of winding metal staircases, wrought iron balustrading and wooden shutters open to catch any breeze. The internet access is as temperamental as it had been in Havana, but that’s to be expected. 

We stopped for lunch at a little place around the corner and up the hill, which was also three levels and provided a wonderful view across the city. I had a delicious octopus with rice and tostones (amazing plantain fritters), while the others had chicken or pork. 

The rest of the afternoon we spent walking around the city exploring, watching a singing and dancing show, and then getting pulled up to dance with the women. I don’t *think* it’s only my orange shirt making me dance, even if it’s the common denominator in the dancing examples so far this trip! A lovely woman came up after we’d stumbled off the stage panting, to ask where I was from, saying I danced “like a Cuban”. What a compliment!

As the sky was looking increasingly threatening and lightning had started to flicker in the distance, we headed back to the hostel, reaching it just as the rain started pouring. The rest of the evening was spent on the upstairs patio, watching nature’s skyshow and chowing down on the hostel cook’s delicious prawns, veggie soup and even… a small bowl of icecream to finish!

Supermarkets and even delis seem to be totally foreign to Cuba, although we did see a couple of non-government food shops around. Hopefully we can find one open, so we can stock up on water, as currently we’re relying on the small supplies sold by the casas, which isn’t the best option when we’re walking around sweating all day.

Our second day in Santiago we started out with a trip to El Morro castle, a huge fort originally built to keep the pirates out of the town. It was obsolete by the time it was built, since the pirates had worked out that they could just go through the mountains instead. Nevertheless, it has great views, obsolete or not!

We then hit the supermercado to check out what Cubans buy at the non-government shops. There were two big rows of chocolate biscuits and other biscuits/crackers, but barely any chip type snacks and NO confectionary aisle! (!!) The frozen and cold food section was also a lot smaller than we’re used to: mainly frozen chicken, with none of the convenience foods we’d expect, and… no icecream either! It’s an icecream conspiracy! We ended up picking up some bottles of water and soft drink. Unlike everywhere else we’ve seen in Cuba, the checkout had an eft machine, but when I tried to pay by credit card, the connection was dead, so we were back to cash.

To celebrate being on holidays, we decided to splurge on massages, which was a great way to spend the afternoon.

Then we headed out to try to catch the Fire Festival, where the people of the city symbolically set the devil on fire to get rid of their sins. It was amazing – the parade was fabulous with lots of different groups from around the Caribbean region. Dancing and costumes and music – oh my!

We had got into conversation with a friendly lady who was telling us about the various groups that were going past, and she asked us if we had somewhere to go to dinner afterwards. I thought that we’d probably be paying for her dinner if we went with her, but I figured what the heck, she’d been friendly and helpful. The place she took us to was nice, with tasty food, and we were left with the bill as expected – but with the kicker that she’d had two dinners and three drinks! It put a bit of a damper on what was otherwise an excellent evening. Oh well, we’ll know for next time. And that restaurant did have the most amazing freshly cooked plantain chips!

B was horrified when we told him the story – I hope he doesn’t think we can’t take care of ourselves after this!

Off to Bayamo and Camaguey tomorrow, seeing more of the country.