Islands

Madeira: Pirates, Wine & Flowers or Everywhere There’s a Miradouro!

| 2suitcasesfor2years

“Could you recommend any restaurants for lunch?” The young car rental agent seemed surprised, at first, that we asking her opinion. “Where are you staying. What do you like?” “In the center of Funchal. Meat, fish, we enjoy everything,” I replied. “Hah, most places in Funchal will be closed for the mid-afternoon break by the time you reach town, but nearby, though it’s in the opposite direction, there is Restaurante Snack-bar Frente Ao, one of my favorite places.” And so, our Madeira adventure began with a delicious lunch in a no-frills local place. Tasty grilled limpets in a buttery garlic sauce started our meal. A traditional Polvo a Lagareio, baked octopus with potatoes, and scabbardfish served with fried bananas followed. It was scrumptious, heavenly, you get my point, it was really GOOD!  Outside, planes flew close to the water on their final approach to FNC, across a panorama of the coast that stretched all the way to the headland of Ponta de São Lourenço.

Our first short drive to the restaurant revealed a verdant, lush tropical island bursting with flowering plants, and mountainous with steep ravines that descended into the ocean, like the radial arms of a spider’s web, from a central ridge that runs the length of the island. Colorfully painted homes with red tiled roofs dotted the countryside like swathes of pigment in an impressionist painting. There are few direct, only circuitous routes, where even the bridges and tunnels, some almost 2 miles long, curve to follow the contour of the land. Banana groves large and small dotted every plot of land between the homes that covered the hillsides. Three vintage cars zoomed by.

Portuguese sailors blown 300 miles off course by a violent storm as they explored the west coast of Africa in 1418 discovered a small uninhabited island, with a sheltered anchorage, where they rode out the storm. In thanks they christened the island Porto Santo, Holy Harbor. They noted in a ship’s log that on the western horizon a “dark monstrous shape loomed.” A year later they returned. Wood, madeira, from its virgin forests was the island’s first exports. The trees were so tall and straight that they allowed the Portuguese to design larger, sturdier ships, which Vasco da Gama’s fleet used to sail to India in 1497.

Felling trees for export opened the hillsides for extensive terracing of the lower slopes in the mid-1500s, when sugar cane became the prized export. Later grapes were introduced, and Madeira wine was born. Both crops thrived with irrigation provided by an extensive series of arduously cut, narrow channels called levadas, which traverse the rugged terrain and divert water from mountain streams to the agricultural terraces across the island. Their water was also used to turn the waterwheels of the first mills on the island. Close to five-hundred miles of levadas cover this mountainous island that is roughly thirty-four miles long and fourteen miles wide.

With Madeira wine came the English, who believed that fortified wines improved with age on long ocean voyages. Sailing to their various colonies in the Americas, English naval and merchant ships would sail south from England to catch the trade winds blowing west off Morocco. Fortuitously, Madeira was a well-placed port of call to resupply. With full sails and barrels of Madeira wine in the ship’s hold, they’d reach the Caribbean in a month’s time. Farther on, in their New England colonies, members of the Continental Congress toasted the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776 with Madeira wine. While being notoriously at odds with Spain for centuries, the Brits and the Portuguese have the world’s oldest alliance which stems from the Treaty of Windsor in 1386 and was fortified, port glasses raised, with the marriage of King John I of Portugal to a daughter of John of Gaunt, Philippa of Lancaster. This treaty of mutual support has lasted over 630 years. Cheers!

Captain Cook and Charles Darwin both visited at the beginning of their explorations. Napoleon in 1815 stopped for a final supply of Madeira wine while enroute to his permanent exile on St Helena. With the advent of steamships, Madeira became a destination for the well to do of Europe. Before the quay was constructed, historical photos show merchants rowing long boats laden with supplies out to ships anchored in the harbor, and returning with visitors to disembark on Funchal’s rocky beach. Doctors recommended its good fresh air for patients convalescing from tuberculosis. Winston Churchill visited in 1950, painted seascapes and stayed at Reid’s Palace, a Madeira institution since 1891 that still serves afternoon high tea.  He left the island with a reputation that it was for stogey old folks, that remained for decades.

But with Portugal joining the European Union in 1986, it enabled a massive investment in infrastructure that united all parts of the island that were previously inaccessible by overland routes. The small island now has over 100 tunnels and bridges, along with seven cable car routes scattered around the island. Across from the cruise terminal at the base of Santa Catarina Park, there is a relief statue set into a granite embankment that commemorates the men who toiled to build the island’s tunnels and terraces.

Flat land is a rarity on Madeira, as is landfill, the lack of which required the airport runway extension in 2000 to be uniquely expanded over the ocean on 180 concrete columns, each of which are 230-foot-tall, for a total length of 9,000 feet. It felt like we were going to land on an aircraft carrier. Fifty-eight cities in twenty-one countries now have direct flights to the island. Cruises to the island continue to be popular and in 2022 Madeira was voted by the World Cruise Awards the Best Cruise Destination in Europe. Madeira has now reinvented itself into a destination packed with outdoor activities that include sailing, whale watching, surfing, paragliding, scuba diving, and mountain hikes for all levels of fitness.

Our hotel, São Francisco Accommodation, was a modest three-star hotel centrally located in Funchal’s historic old town. The big pluses for us were its elevator, underground parking lot across the street, and its location. The most interesting parts of Madeira’s capital city were within walking distance of our lodging. We were set for the week!  We chose to stay in Funchal because it is the island’s largest city, with enough things to do locally so we wouldn’t feel the need to go elsewhere. The car was for day trips to explore the rest of the island.

One afternoon we were drawn down the street by the sound of classical music flowing from the park around the corner from the hotel. Folks casually filled a small amphitheater in the midst of a manicured garden. Next to the bandstand a small kiosk offered a table.  We ordered drinks and enjoyed the afternoon entertainment. At the bottom of the park people mingled around a line of classic cars parked along the street.

Delightfully, Madeirans out of necessity have inadvertently created a sub-culture of serious vintage car enthusiasts. Importing cars to the island has always been very expensive. Consequently, automobiles have become family heirlooms. Many of them are passionately maintained or restored and passed down through the generations. So common is the practice that over 800 vintage cars are registered on this small island. Their enthusiasm is celebrated each year with the Madeira Classic Car Revival, a three day event that culminates with a race along the Praça do Povo waterfront every May.

Several mornings we were up before dawn to walk along the waterfront in search of the ultimate sunrise shots with the unpopulated islands Selvagens and Desertas silhouetted on the horizon. We were not disappointed.

There were numerous interesting photo opportunities from the marina to Forte de São Tiago, which was built in the early 1600s in response to two brutal attacks by pirates. French pirate Bertrand de Montluc assaulted the town in 1566 with three ships. Mayhem ensued as his cut-throats   rampaged and plundered the streets for fifteen days. Then Barbary pirates with eight ships ransacked Funchal in 1617 and took 1200 people back to Algiers as slaves. Now, under the ramparts of the fort, pensioners enjoyed ritualistic morning swims along a peaceful, pebbly Praia de São Tiago.

Around the corner from the fortress at the Miradouro do Socorro, a pretty arbor frames the view of the sea and the Complexo Balnear da Barreirinha, a waterfront day resort where you can rent a lounger and swim in their pool or the sea. Across the street the Igreja de Santa Maria Maior, a small parish church, serenely graces the neighborhood.

Heading back into town we walked along the Rua de Santa Maria, a narrow alley known for the uniquely painted doors on homes, galleries and restaurants that line the street.  To see many of the doors you have to visit the street early before the shops open them for the business day.

In front of the Mercado dos Lavradores, the town’s old central market, there is a bronze statue depicting a merchant driving a team of oxen pulling a flat wooden pallet loaded with barrels of wine. Versions of these toboggans fitted with wicker chairs were called Carro de Cesto. Until roads were introduced in 1904 to accommodate the first cars brought to the island, this was the preferred downhill method of public transport, as a wheeled cart might run away uncontrollably if there was a mishap.

Today, at the steps before the Nossa Senhora do Monte Church, toboggans filled with tourists are pushed downhill by two men, Carreiros, donning wicker hats and traditional white outfits. Hold on, the steep serpentine course is over a mile long and the sleds can go almost 25 miles an hour! There are no brakes, only the special, rubber-soled shoes the carreiros wear, and stopping is accomplished by dragging their feet along the road to slow the toboggan. It’s a popular activity easily combined with a cable car ride from the Funchal waterfront to the Monte Palace Tropical Garden.

Though when we visited we chose to use our car instead of taking the cable car to Monte. We didn’t realize when we started but the google map route we followed to the garden was up one of Funchal’s steepest streets. The Caminho de Ferro takes its name from the old funicular train tracks upon which the road was paved. It runs for two miles straight up a hill with a twenty-five-degree slope and gains nearly 2000ft in altitude. I was doing fine driving uphill in second gear until we encountered a semi-blind cross street that did not have a stop sign, only a large traffic mirror. This was something I hadn’t encountered before, so I came to a complete stop. The incline of the road was very steep at this point, and I had difficulty getting the car moving again without rolling back too far. Ultimately after several frustrating minutes I rolled the car back perpendicularly to the road, got the car in gear and powered slowly through the intersection. Fortunately, there is very little car traffic on the side roads in Funchal and we lucked out in finding a parking space near the garden. The return route into the city center, down streets so narrow it required pulling the mirrors in, was equally challenging.

In the 1700s the hillside that the garden covers was a private estate with a small chateau. Later it functioned as a grand luxury hotel. In 1987 the entrepreneur Jose Manuel Rodrigues Berardo acquired it and transformed it into a serene Japanese themed botanical garden and opened it to the public. It’s a beautiful tranquil landscape, but it’s best to arrive early or late to avoid a crowd. There is also collection of contemporary Zimbabwean stone sculptures from the 1960s and a cave created to display a spectacular mineral collection gathered from around the world.

Slightly smaller and lower on the slope the Jardim Botânico da Madeira is also worth a visit to experience its stunning formal garden with a view of the Funchal coastline, and paths that weave through various plantings. There is also a nice cafe with a terrace that has one of the best views of Funchal.

However, if you enjoy orchids the place to head is the Quinta da Boa Vista. It’s a quirky plant nursery that has been operated by several generations of the Garton family and has hundreds of different orchids. As we entered the first greenhouse, an eager attendant waved us over and encouraged us to smell a delicate plant she was holding. An Oncidium Sharry Baby, it had a delicate chocolate aroma. It was delightful. With two stunning botanical gardens in Funchal and smaller ones seeded around the island, Madeira justly earns its nickname as “The Floating Garden of the Atlantic.”

Earlier we had spotted the hulking edifice of the Fortaleza de São João Baptista do Pico. A 17th century stronghold, it was built high on a hill, 350 feet above Funchal’s waterfront to deter pirate attacks. It’s a wonderful destination within town, with a nice children’s playground and café outside the fortress battlements. The view out over the city and ocean was spectacular.

Other mornings we explored closer to home heading to the Igreja de São João Evangelista, on Funchal’s central plaza. Built by Jesuits in 1629, it is known for the fusion of its Mannerist exterior with a lavish Baroque interior.

We climbed to the church’s roof for an exceptional view of the old town. Funchal’s City Hall is adjacent to the church and has a stately courtyard centered around a unique fountain depicting Leda and the Swan. An odd choice we thought for decorating a municipal building.

But Funchal is very supportive of public art and we passed many interesting sculptures along our walks. The historic old town with its cobbled lanes lined with centuries old buildings and churches was a delight to explore.

One morning we photographed small boats leaving the port at sunrise from Parque de Santa Catarina, which commands a bluff across from the cruise terminal.

From the park we walked along Rua Carvalho Araujo up into São Martinho, an upscale area anchored by Reid’s Palace. Occasionally we popped into the hotels that faced the water to check out their views.

But there is more to this island than just Funchal, so we hopped in the car for farther explorations west along the coast. Our first day trip was on a Saturday afternoon to Câmara de Lobos, famous as a favorite spot for Winston Churchill to paint. A newly married couple was taking wedding photos amid the colorful small boats pulled ashore as young children splashed and played with their dog in the shallow surf  that splashed against the boat ramp.

Parallel parking on a steep incline was challenging, but it’s a skill that’s required on Madeira, and came in handy when we reached the Cabo Girão Skywalk, one of the highest cliffs in Europe. Relatively close to Funchal, this is a popular destination and there was actually a traffic jam as cars and buses creatively parked. This glass bottomed miradouro seems to hover miraculously over fertile fields that grow grapes and tomatoes nineteen-hundred feet below. Nearby the Cabo Girão cable car, originally built to help farmers bring their crops up from the fields, can whisk you down to a secluded beach. We have a healthy fear of heights and instead continued on.

I wasn’t fast enough with my camera to grab a photo of a paraglider swooping low over our car as he landed along the stoney beach at Cais da Fajã do Mar. High above us a group of paragliders swirled on warm thermals and we waited for them to descend, but they kept floating back over the ridge.

We meandered farther west to the beach and harbor, dramatically wedged between ocean and mountain, in Estreito da Calheta.  This is a largely human-altered section of the coast with a breakwater protecting Praia da Calheta, created with imported sand, and harbor next to it. We ate lunch on the promenade across from the marina.

Heading back to Funchal later that afternoon we made a final stop in Ponta do Sol, and were able to find sanctioned parking in one of Madeira’s older, now decommissioned traffic tunnels. Walking out to a small headland we had late afternoon refreshments on a terrace with a brilliant view of the coastal village.

“Roll up your window.” “Wait, you’re not going to…” Yee haw! I yelled and we laughed while a thunderous cascade of water splashed off the roof of our car as we drove under the Cascade of Angels waterfall.

Till next time, Craig & Donna

Havana, Cuba: Beautiful in neglect

| 2suitcasesfor2years

The amber glow of sunrise warmed the waterfront as our ship docked.  Its upper deck provided us a view of the port as if we were seagulls soaring above the first commuter ferries of the day crossing the harbor.  Along the water, buildings wore a tired facade of montage color and aged textures. Beautiful in neglect. These were our first impressions of Havana. The few buildings under renovation were easy to spot with their fresh coats of paint. The domes of the Russian Catedral Ortodoxa Nuestra Señora de Kazán, built to celebrate Soviet – Cuban friendship glistened in the sunrise, its onion shaped domes an odd juxtaposition, accented the balmy Caribbean skyline.  We’d be spending two full days in Havana.

By the time Nevada legalized gaming in 1931, Havana, once nicknamed “the Paris of the Caribbean” was already a well-established tropical get-away for gambling, especially if you lived in the wintry northern parts of the United States.  Havana’s balmy weather and swaying palms contrasted nicely against Las Vegas’ dusty strip in the desert where tumbleweeds blew across the sidewalks. In the 1950s, fifty dollars could purchase a three-day package tour to a Havana casino that included airfare, entertainment, food and hotel. Cruises to Havana from Miami were also possible aboard ships like the 725 passenger S.S. Florida for $46.00. For an additional $35.00 you could take your car along if you wanted to explore the “700 miles of Cuban highways,” a travel brochure from the time advertised. Cruise ships arriving at night were occasionally treated to displays of fireworks over the centuries old Castillo De Los Tres Reyes Del Morro and the highrise apartments along the Malecon as they entered the harbor. It was city of Jazz clubs, high rollers, zoot suits, large finned Cadillacs and mobsters. Headliners like Frank Sinatra, Dizzy Gillespie, Eartha Kitt, and Nat King Cole drew folks to the casinos controlled by New York, Chicago, and Miami crime syndicates.

Mafia payoffs to the rampantly corrupt regime of Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista and his associates allowed their casinos, brothels and drug running operations to flourish unimpeded. As flashy as the casinos were, the sugar industry dominated ninety percent of the rural Cuban economy for decades and was the largest employer in the countryside until sugar prices collapsed.  That along with government policies that ignored its impoverished citizenry bred increased discontent as the disparity of wealth between the rural poor and the Havana elite grew intolerable. The jungled mountains of the islands’ interior sheltered Fidel Castro and his armed revolutionaries. 1959 was their year. Batista and his cronies fled to the Dominican Republic. Afterwards all homes, properties, businesses, and cars were nationalized.  An exodus of the Cuban middle class followed with approximately 1.4 million people heading to the United States to reestablish their lives.

While Europeans and Canadians have long traveled to Cuban government-run tourists’ resorts along the coast, we were visiting the island on a cruise during that first window of opportunity which opened to Americans between 2016 – 2019, before access was unfortunately tightened again.  Recently the travel restrictions to Cuba have once again been loosened.

Rush hour in Havana happens whenever the cruise ships disgorge their passengers onto the waterfront to walk into the city center, catch their bus tours or to snag a ride in one of those classic cars from the late 1950s. There are literally thousands of antique cars still on the roads in Cuba, jury-rigged to keep running and often repainted with house paint that reflects the bright ambience of the Caribbean. 

Depending on where you are in the disembarking queue these beautiful classics, especially the convertibles, might already be tooting around Havana with other tourists and you might have to opt for a coco taxi.  These entertaining rickshaw type taxis are covered in a bright yellow, fiberglass shell and have seating for three across the rear axle. When it rains, you are going to get soaked as we did when we got caught in a downpour. The return ride was definitely more comfortable after several Cuba Libre cocktails. 

Down the side streets of the city, it wasn’t unusual to see these vintage cars raised on cinderblocks, their hoods open as amateur mechanics tinkered away to keep their classic beauties running. There are about 60,000 old American cars still on the road in Cuba. Most date from the 1950s, but there are still Packards, Cadillacs, Dodges, Chevys, Studebakers and Fords from the 1940s and 30s that are still road worthy.  This is an amazing testament to the talent of Cuban mechanics that have been “MacGyvering” the repairs with makeshift parts since the revolution ended in 1959, when the U.S. trade embargo began and Cuba banned the import of American products. While some cars look to be in mint condition, often the interiors are taped together, door handles are missing, and the windows don’t roll up. Engines don’t last forever and it’s not uncommon to swap engines between the American makes and models. Sometimes even the motors from Russian Volgas and Ladas work their way under the hood of Fords and Chevys. Fiats and Peugeots were imported after the revolution but proved to be not as durable as the American models. 

With the nationalization of property in 1959 the nicer cars of the wealthy who fled were assigned to government officials, doctors, renown celebrities and famous athletes. Regulations prohibiting the ownership of cars were eventually changed to allow Cubans to freely purchase older cars brought to the island before the revolution. Often cars are family heirlooms that have been handed down from generation to generation, with fathers teaching sons the intricacies of keeping the cars running. It’s extremely rare to find new automobiles in Cuba as the government imposes very high taxes on car imports, rendering them highly unaffordable for the vast majority of Cubans.

The ingenuity of Cuban mechanics can surely teach us a thing or two about sustainability. Wonderfully many of these resourceful home mechanics have kept these automotive treasures alive and have created an income for their family by offering rides in their classic cars to tourists. “There are no junkyards in Cuba; everything is still driven.”

Flagging down a Cadillac convertible, we took a ride along the Malecon seafront before breakfast at a paladare recommended on TripAdvisor.  Paladares are small privately run restaurants, usually operated out of the chef’s home, that have been allowed to open as Cuba relaxes its ban on private enterprise in the country.  Typically, their menus change daily depending on what is available at the markets.

After breakfast, our original plan was to walk to Havana’s Central Park to join a tour of the city with a Guruwalk guide. Unfortunately, we arrived late and missed the group. Unfazed, we decided to wander on our own around the city.

Parque Central is the nucleus of a daily classic car show with the old cars neatly lined up for tourists to choose which nostalgic Ford or Chevy they want to cruise around the city in.  Length of the trip and price can be bargained for with each driver.

Across from the park, sparkling from the completion of a recent renovation, the ornate baroque façade of the Gran Teatro de La Havana drew our attention. Built in 1838, it’s a cavernous structure that can seat 1,500 people and is home to the Cuban National Ballet Company.  President Obama addressed the Cuban people from its stage in 2016 and the biennial International Ballet Festival of Havana is hosted here.

While many hotels and historic public buildings immediately surrounding Havana’s Central Park have been pristinely renovated, you need only to walk a half block down any side street and it’s obvious that the maintenance of the city has been neglected for decades. With many of the buildings in central Havana dating from the 1800’s, most are severely showing their age. Signs of structural neglect were endemic.

This quote I found sums up concisely the housing situation. “In Cuba, everything belongs to everyone and no-one at the same time and if a building is ‘collectively-owned’, it’s understood that the State is the one responsible, but the government doesn’t have the resources for maintenance.”

We worked our way towards Real Fábrica de Tabaco Partagas, a historic cigar shop and factory dating to 1845, located behind the Capitolio Nacional de Cuba, a near replica of the United States’ capital building, only larger and with a higher dome. A tour of the cigar factory, where 500 people sort, grade and roll tobacco leaves into world famous habanos, cigars, was not available the day we visited, but we were able to watch a cigar rolling demonstration.

Asking for a recommendation for a place to eat enroute back to the harbor the salesman at the cigar shop suggested Tablao de Pancho, Grupo El Guajirito. Along the way a pleasant young woman, sensing we might be lost, spoke to us in excellent English and offered to guide us to the restaurant. She declined a tip for her assistance, so we asked her to join us for lunch instead. She quietly saved half her meal to take home to her child, because her ration card did not provide for enough food.

Life and business are conducted on the streets of the neighborhood with most doorways and shallow balconies harboring tenants trying to stay cool. A mattress maker refurbished rusted bedsprings on the sidewalk. Vegetable cart vendors pushed their wagons around the blocks. The scarcity of some the smallest luxuries and basic necessities is visible and there was a sense of waiting, but what for was difficult to determine. The hardships of life that the residents of the city endure under a failed socialist revolution are still very much in evidence in the forgotten, gritty side streets of the capital.

The cigar chomping aficionado in our group was determined to purchase the legal limit of Cuban habanas that were permissible to bring back to the states at the time, so three of us crammed into a coco taxi, a not particularly macho ride to cruise in along the Malecon.

Our destination was the Hotel Nacional de Cuba for a smoke and a glass of rum. A historic 1930s hotel and casino, before the revolution it attracted American celebrities like Erroll Flynn, Gary Cooper, Rita Hayworth, Fred Astaire, Ava Gardner, Marlon Brando, and Walt Disney. Now the hotel annually hosts the Festival de Cine Nuevo Iberoamericano and claims Michael Keaton, Francis Ford Coppola, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Steven Spielberg as past attendees.

Later that afternoon, behind the 1500s era Castillo de la Real Fuerza, a star shaped fortress that protected the colonial harbor, we wandered through the Old Havana district, still lively since the days when treasure laden Spanish galleons from the New World stopped in Havana before voyaging back to Spain.

Latin music filled Obispo Street and Calle O’Reilly, the two main boulevards, the later named to honor Alejandro O’Reilly, an Irish born soldier who fought for Spain during the British siege of Havana in 1762. This neighborhood is alive with street buskers and has an entrepreneurial spirit that’s visible in many the restaurants, galleries and shops that line the sidewalks here.

Our ship listed heavily as gale force winds churned the sea as we left the shelter of the harbor and passed the solid stone walls of the Castillo De Los Tres Reyes Del Morro.

Across the water large waves crashed against the seawall that protects the Malecon from collapsing into the sea.

It’s all too easy to romanticize poverty in an exotic destination that’s veiled by swaying palm trees and a pristine Caribbean sky.  The people of Cuba deserve better from their government. Watching the skyline of Havana fade in the twilight we wondered if Cuba’s sea change was coming.

Till next time,

Craig & Donna

Cienfuegos, Cuba – A Caribbean Time Capsule 

| 2suitcasesfor2years

The sun was still below the horizon as men rowed small wooden fishing boats, laden with nets and poles, against the waves as we entered the narrow channel that would eventually widen into the Bahia de Cienfuegos, Cienfuegos Bay. Not much appears to have changed since the old man battled his Marlin in Hemingway’s 1951 novella. Farther along, listing boats were tied to beaten docks in front of weathered homes, their pastel colors muted in the predawn. They faced the inlet under the battlements of Castillo de Jagua, a stone fortress that has guarded this stretch of water leading to the bay since 1745.

The bay was encountered by Christopher Columbus while on his second voyage to the new world in 1494 and noted as a spectacular natural harbor, located at the end of a long narrow inlet, a perfect sheltered anchorage to weather the gales and hurricanes that blow across the Caribbean. However, closer to the gold of the new world, Havanna, on Cuba’s north coast, became the island’s dominant harbor and city. Mostly, Cienfuegos Bay was a forgotten backwater, without a permanent settlement, on the south coast of Cuba, a perfect location for the notorious British pirates Francis Drake and Henry Morgan to launch their raids on the Spanish Main and plunder the treasure fleets that voyaged from Havanna back to Seville, until the fortress ruined a good pirating gig.

The area grew slowly until the early 1800’s when an influx of French migrants fleeing the slave revolt in Haiti founded the city in 1819. Flattened during an 1825 hurricane, the city was rebuilt with a modern cosmopolitan grid pattern. The fertile region surrounding Cienfuegos supported prosperous tobacco, coffee and sugar plantations and continued to attract French immigrants from Louisiana, Bordeaux and Quebec. By the mid-1800s, a railway funneled goods from across the region to the port for export, and a steamship line connected Cienfuegos to Charleston and New York City. The city’s prosperity was reflected in its stately mansions, elegant civic architecture, wide boulevards and parks reminiscent of New Orleans and Paris, earning it the nickname “La Perla del Sur,” the Pearl of the South.

The Cuba of the 2020s still looks very much like it did during Hemingway’s life, as if it was stuck in time, a perpetual movie set. This is a result of the political decisions made during the 50-year reign of the country’s communist dictator, Fidel Castro, who ruled from the revolution in 1959 until 2008, and other communist leaders since then.  Consequently, the United States imposed and still maintains a trade embargo against the Cuban government that visually appears to have frozen the country in the 1960s.

Europeans and Canadians have long traveled to the government-run tourist resorts along the pristine coast. Previously, an inland tourism infrastructure didn’t exist, but with the introduction of the internet to the country and encouraging private enterprise reforms things are slowly beginning to change. We were visiting Cuba on a cruise during that first window of opportunity that was open to Americans between 2016 – 2019, before access was unfortunately tightened again.  Recently the travel restrictions to Cuba have been loosened again.

Across from the pier a horse drawn cart with several wooden benches, car tires for wheels and a sun bleached canopy stood idle. It wasn’t meant for the tourist trade, but instead was the cheapest mode of transportation for local folks to use to move about town. And it was our introduction to how self-reliant Cubans are and how slowly change happens in Cuba. Then we noticed the cars.

Earlier an email confirmed our rendezvous, “Ten is good. Meet at the statue of Benny Moré, a beloved Cuban singer, songwriter and band leader, at the intersection of Paseo El Prado and the pedestrian only San Fernando. Ciao.”

We had decided to skip any ship organized tours of Cienfuegos and instead opted for a tour of the city with a Guruwalk guide we found online.

With introductions made, our small group of four followed our guide through Cienfuegos as they pointed out various sites and their significance. Other stops included the government shoe store where the limited styles were only available in black, and a government bodega.

Here food is acquired with the use of La Libreta, a government issued ration book used to tally your monthly allocation. allowance or allotment Typically the monthly allowance per person is 5 eggs, 1 liter of cooking oil, 1 pound of spaghetti, 3 pounds of refined or white sugar, 3 pounds of unrefined or dark sugar, 6 pounds of white rice, 20 ounces of black beans, 2 packets of “mixed coffee”, daily bread (dinner rolls). Fresh produce not available at the government bodegas is sold at state sponsored farmers markets.

Stopping at a large print shop, we watched the printer set lead type by hand as he assembled each word and sentence for the document he was preparing from a large tray of metal vowels, consonants and punctuation marks. There were not any computers, laser printers or copy machines in sight, only the shop’s heavy German Heidelberg printing presses, which have been meticulously maintained since 1959.

From the top of Hotel La Union, the highest point in the city’s center, we surveyed Cienfuegos, today a sprawling city of 150,000. 

“So, you’ve noticed the old cars on the street?” Our guide turned the talk at lunch away from any political questions we were eager to ask about life in a communist country.

There are about 60,000 old American cars still on the road in Cuba. Most date from the 1950s, but there are still Consuls, Packards, Cadillacs, Dodges, Chevys, Studebakers and Fords from the 1940s and 30s that are still road worthy.  This is an amazing testament to the talent of Cuban mechanics that have been “MacGyvering” the repairs with makeshift parts since the revolution ended in 1959, when the U.S. trade embargo began, and Cuba banned the import of American products. While some cars look to be in mint condition, often the interiors are taped together, door handles are missing, and the windows don’t roll up.

Engines don’t last forever and its not uncommon to swap engines between the American makes and models. Sometimes even the motors from Russian Volgas and Ladas work their way under the hood of Fords and Chevys. Fiats and Peugeots were imported after the revolution but proved to be not as durable as the American models.  With the nationalization of property in 1959 the nicer cars of the wealthy who fled were assigned to government officials, doctors, renown celebrities and famous athletes. Regulations prohibiting the ownership of cars was eventually changed to allow Cubans to freely purchase older cars brought to the island before the revolution. Since then, often cars are family heirlooms that have been handed down from generation to generation. Fathers teaching sons the intricacies of keeping the cars running. It’s extremely rare to find late model cars on the roads as the government imposes very high taxes on new car imports, making them highly unaffordable for the majority of Cubans.

“There are no junkyards in Cuba, everything is still driven.” The ingenuity of Cuban mechanics can surely teach us a thing or two about sustainability. Wonderfully many of these resourceful home mechanics have kept these automotive treasures alive and have created an income for their family by offering rides in their classic cars to tourists.

After lunch we watched dancers rehearse in an old colonial building now used as a community center, and we stopped in several art galleries along the park that featured many talented Cuban artists.  With the government tightly controlling the economy along with the print and electronic media in the country, creative self-expression through art, dance and music are treasured venues as long as the views expressed don’t “run counter to the objectives of the socialist society.”

While the center of the city is well maintained, and many of the old mansions and civic edifices recently renovated. The homes and buildings along the side streets show decades of neglect from a failed socialist system.

Pride in ownership is a difficult concept in Cuba, and since wages are so very low, buying paint is the last thing anyone is thinking about. Low wages necessitate most families to spend any extra funds at the free markets to buy the goods that aren’t covered with the La Libreta rations card.

This quote I found sums up concisely the housing situation. “In Cuba, everything belongs to everyone and no-one at the same time and if a building is “collectively-owned”, it’s understood that the State is the one responsible, but the goverment can’t afford the maintenance.”

Down the side streets, past glories are now sadly intriguing in their neglect, the homes and buildings wearing a texture carved from storms and hot unrelenting sunshine, revealing ancient layers of paint that gives the neighborhoods a weathered patina, a faded elegance.

Till next time,

Craig & Donna