Santiago de Cuba - A ‘steaming, breathing, rhythmic city’ of revolution, rum and perseverance

Santiago de Cuba: A 'steaming, breathing, rhythmic city' of revolution,
rum and perseverance

Seeking a fresh muse, bestselling author Marissa Stapley turns to
Santiago de Cuba, where 500 years of mystery, history and culture are
nestled between the green mountains and blue sea
MARISSA STAPLEY
The Globe and Mail Last updated: Thursday, Nov. 05, 2015 3:28PM EST

I caught my first glimpse of the Sierra Maestra mountain range from a
plane window during a flight into Santiago de Cuba last January for a
family vacation. I was like a child seeing mountains for the first time;
I pressed my face against the glass. These were more than just
mountains: I could see that from the sky. I watched them rise abruptly
from the sea – no small talk, no gentle transition, no messing around
here. And I was so entranced by these undulating mounds of mossy green
and sunburnt brown with their plumes of smoke, their secret caves, their
stories of battles and hardships, of national treasures and bloody
murders, that I took out my notebook and started outlining a novel.
(Could the so-called cradle of a revolution inspire anything less?)

I returned to Santiago, Cuba's second largest city next to Havana, this
past September. I came on my own to hunt the story I was trying to write
because I'd moved well past the outline, but the novel still felt like
it had no flesh. Where better to find what I was looking for than here,
in this coastal city edged by these mythical mountains and as far away
from the standard all-inclusive Cuban experience as possible? Santiago
de Cuba is currently celebrating the 500th anniversary of its founding,
and is home to a fabled carnival that brings flocks of intrepid tourists
every July. The city has a history that includes burning to the ground
and rising from the ashes, being plundered by both the French and the
British, and a besiegement by the Americans during the Spanish-American
War. The ill-fated 1953 attack on the Moncada Barracks happened here,
and although things didn't go exactly according to Fidel Castro et al's
plan that time, a revolution was still born and grew up on these
streets. Later, Castro proclaimed the revolution's victory from a
balcony on city hall.

I started my week staying in the gloriously faded Casa Granda, which is
the opulent former guesthouse of a Spaniard named Don Manuel de Granda
but opened as a hotel in 1914. The hotel sits proudly in the heart of
the city's old town, facing the Parque Cespedes and the Metropolitan
Cathedral – which at the time I was there was being made ready for the
arrival of Pope Francis; he was stopping over in Cuba on his way to the
United States the following week, a move that highlighted the immediacy
of the thaw between the two adversarial countries: Even the Pope was
trying to broker peace.

I checked into my room knowing my story lurked on the streets of this
steaming, breathing, rhythmic city – but at first, I rarely went
outside. I wasn't nervous about being a woman travelling alone in a city
filled with dark mystery at night and raw heat during the day: It was
just that I was away from my children for a week. Writers who are also
parents know how closely uninterrupted writing time must be guarded. I
holed up in my high-ceilinged room-with-a-view and tried to channel
Hemingway (there were a few bottles of rum in the hotel room fridge, at
least). I stared out the window at the angels that looked like they were
about to take flight from the cathedral's roof and tried to picture the
Pope here. I admired the view while I ate dinner at the hotel's rooftop
restaurant. And finally, one morning, I wandered away from the hotel and
ended up at the Museo del Ron, where I learned that Bacardi was Cuban
before it was anything else, and that the rum was produced in Cuba for
100 years before the factories were abandoned in favour of less
politically challenging places to do business. No matter: The Cubans
took over the factories and learned to make rum without anyone's help,
as they've learned to do most other things for some time.

I drank a shot of rum at 10 o'clock in the morning, and decided I wasn't
going to do any more writing that day. Instead, I went to the Cementerio
Santa Ifigenia. Here lie the so-called martyrs of the 1953 Moncada
Barracks attack, but also Compay Segundo, the musician made famous by
the Buena Vista Social Club. Here, I watched the hourly change of the
guard at the tomb of Jose Marti, poet and revolutionary philosopher. And
here, I realized that my story's final scene needed to happen in a
cemetery. It was probably the rum talking, but I thanked Hemingway no
less. Because when you have an end, you also have a beginning.

On my last night in Santiago, I watched a local band with so much talent
they could have played anywhere in the world light up the night at the
Casa de la Tradiciones. The next morning, I left the city behind for a
few days at a beachside resort. I felt freedom from everything, but
especially my obsessive hunt for a muse, as I rode on the back of a
motorcycle alongside the mountains that had haunted my dreams for
months. I didn't know where to look first: at my beloved mountain ranges
or at the rough majesty of the coast, with its lonely beaches, distant
fishing boats and blue-green water dashing itself against jagged,
unwelcoming cliffs. My Cuban guide performed a death-defying pass of a
Soviet-era lorry, its bed filled with early morning travellers on their
way to work who gazed at us impassively as we hurtled by, and I focused
for a moment on not dying horribly before relaxing my grip. And
suddenly, I felt like I could really see this place.

Everywhere, there were pro-revolution slogans, painted on rocks and
fence posts and walls, painted even on the mountains themselves: Patria
o muerte; Viva Fidel; Patria es Humanidad, Viva Raul. And everywhere was
the radically legendary face of Che Guevara, which means so much more
here than it does at home. It's supposed to feel to these people like
it's still happening, I thought. Like there's still something to rail
against, like this island still stands – as a whole that is greater than
the sum of its parts – for the uncompromising ideals of the ruling
party. But this is what it really feels like: It feels like an island
run by the Lost Boys from Peter Pan. It feels like a place forgotten by
time. And it felt unfair here, on a pitted and potholed coastal road
that progress hadn't touched yet. The villages I passed only had
electricity during certain hours of the day, if at all. The people who
lived in them had just enough – but just enough never feels like enough.
(Westerners know this; it's why we're always striving for more.)

Like many Canadians, I fear, with a certain smugness, what the thaw in
Cuban-American relations will mean for an island we have long considered
a little bit ours. But just because we vacation here – and mostly on the
temperate white sand beaches that are like the refined cousin of the
relentlessly hot and rebelliously rugged south side of the island – does
not mean this place belongs to us at all. In fact, Cuba technically
belongs to no one: But it might, soon enough. And all we can do is pray
that the hopeful and hard-working people who have always been the
greatest asset of the revolution, who have made this an unforgettable
island to vacation on, who have made this feel like home, will benefit
and prevail.

A little further down the road and we were forced to take a detour
because a bridge had been washed out – two years ago; they were still
waiting for the right machine to fix it. And I found the end of my story
in a lonely cemetery facing the ocean. The cemetery was simple, ordered,
plain. It possessed none of the glory of the one I had seen in the city.
There were no changing guards, no huge granite stones, no statues, no
flower beds, no pathways. Instead, there was the hard ground, and the
sea, and a beach covered with pebbles and larger rocks that looked as if
they had been strewn about by an angry spirit. The graves were only
white crosses atop rough concrete boxes. These graves, my guide told me,
are dug by groups of families and friends who put their money together
to buy the concrete, who join together to dig and mourn and pour. "When
someone in your family dies, you call everyone you know to come and
help," he told me. "And they come." Of course they do. Because that's
how it's done here, on this island where people live and die and grieve
as a single entity, since they know no other way to be. It's a beautiful
ending.

Marissa Stapley is the bestselling author of Mating for Life. Her second
novel, Things To Do When It's Raining, will be released by Simon &
Schuster in 2016.

IF YOU GO

If you're veering off the all-inclusive path, it helps to plan your trip
through Cuba Travel Network (cubatravelnetwork.com;
cubahotelreservation.com); they make it easier to customize your trip
with a few nights in Santiago and in the coastal village of Chivirico.
And they have local specialists in Santiago – and other locations across
Cuba – who are friendly, efficient, and available by phone and email to
help you with things like finding a travel guide and booking side trips.
Chivirico is about an hour by bus or taxi from the Antonio Maceo airport.

WHERE TO STAY

In Santiago, stay at the Hotel Casa Granda (gran-caribe.com; rooms from
$110) or the Hotel San Basilio (rooms from $100). Both are centrally
located historic buildings, but the San Basilio is in a quieter
neighbourhood than the Casa Granda.

Brisas has two hotels in Chivirico: Sierra Mar and Los Galeones. Both
have their charms, but are somewhat clunky – at Sierra Mar (rooms from
$105), the elevators almost never work, so don't go if you can't do
stairs; Los Galeones (rooms from $110) is perched on a cliff and there
is no elevator down to the beach, so same goes for the stair issue. But
the stunning views of the oceans and mountains make up for the climb.
(And stairs mean an excuse to indulge more while on vacation, right?)
Both hotels are filled with regulars during the high season, and the
vibe is a little bit "summer camp for adults." Staff are friendly and
the local musicians who play at the restaurants, in the lobby bar and on
the beach make every meal and cocktail hour feel like an event,
especially when they break into a haunting Spanish version of Leonard
Cohen's Hallelujah, just for the Canadians who feel like they own the place.

WHERE TO EAT

Go to the Restaurante el Palenquito. This paladar – a private
restaurant, not state-run; and a great way to enjoy local Cuban fare and
avoid feeling like a tourist – is not located in the city proper but is
worth the cab fare to the outskirts of Santiago. Atmosphere is tropical
backyard barbecue. The service is slow-ish, the mojitos are great and
the lobster is fantastic – none of which are a surprise for Cuba. What
is a surprise is how good the beef is. (Avenida del Rio 28 entre calle 6
y Carretera del Caney)

Next, forget what you think you know about food in Cuba: Café Rumba does
everything right, from coffee to breakfast to tapas. Highlights are 5
p.m. happy hour and the Rumba Beauty Centre, where you can get your
nails done and have a cocktail at the same time. The terrace is perfect
for people watching. (San Felix 455 A)

WHAT TO DO

Spend a day exploring Santiago on foot, with a map, or with a local
guide. Ask your tour operator, or the staff at your hotel, or trust your
instincts. Common sense must prevail but the city is generally a safe
place for intrepid travellers to set out looking for adventure, and
there is almost always someone around willing to help you with this.
Some city highlights are San Pedro de la Roca del Morro Castle,
Cementerio Santa Ifigenia and the Moncada Barracks.

Ask around about the best place to hear live music and you'll likely be
told to go to Casa de la Trova. It's fine, with good bands, lively salsa
dancing and several balconies from which to enjoy both the music and
city atmosphere. (Bartolome Maso) But Casa de las Tradiciones feels more
like the genuine live Cuban music deal. (Calle General Lacret 651)

There are also bands almost every night – and good food, and a
captivating view of the city at night – at the Hotel Casa Granda's
terrace bar.

Source: Santiago de Cuba: A 'steaming, breathing, rhythmic city' of
revolution, rum and perseverance - The Globe and Mail -
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/travel/destinations/santiago-de-cuba-a-steaming-breathing-rhythmic-city-of-revolution-rum-andperseverance/article27120542/