Cuba - Santa Clara

The two days I spent in Santa Clara also happened to be the only two days of my time in Cuba to have rained heavily throughout the day. Despite the miserable weather, I think I enjoyed Santa Clara more than most of the other places I'd been to thus far.

Che under camouflage

Unsurprisingly the casa that I had diligently booked well in advance and confirmed by reply to their email, did not work out - I was supposed to call ahead 48 hours before to reconfirm the booking again. What a stupid and inefficient process. I was quite annoyed but it didn't help the situation, instead I took up the owner's offer to go to his mate's casa. It turned out to be a happy coincidence.

My new casa host, Peter, not only spoke very good English, he also had great chat and I learned a lot about Cuban life from him (I'll summarise life in Cuba in another post). He was a very friendly guy and extremely helpful. His casa had 4 rooms; 3 for guests, 1 for his wife, two daughters and himself (I was intrigued but didn't ask the next obvious question ;))

The only sights I was interested in were:

1. Che Guevara memorial - has a large statue of him, a museum and his grave. Worth a visit to see the history.






2. Cigar factory tour - between 9.30 and 1.30, you have to first buy a ticket from Cubanican for $4. It's a half hour tour where they show you how cigars are handmade after they get the dried leaves from the farmers. No photos were allowed in the factory, but I did take notes of some interesting facts:

The factory employs 150 workers (60-70% women) who work 8 hours a day, together they could make 15,000 cigars per day. The process is split into two parts. The first involves rolling dried leaves (the filler) together around a larger leaf (the binder) and compress for half an hour. Leaves come from tobacco fields such as Viñales. After compression the cigars are passed to another team to wrap in a more flexible leaf (the wrapper), glued at the end using maple resin, and cut to the right length. They are then tested for quality using a machine (hardness and compactness) before being sent over to packaging. Factories usually mix the leaves that they use so a cigar could have come from different families, fields and villages. The crown leaves that get the most sunlight are used as the filler; the middle leaves as the binder and the bottom leaves of a tobacco plant as the wrapper. Any 'waste leaves' cut out from the hand making process are sent for machine-made cigars or cigarettes. Handmade cigars cost $4-6 each, but the farmers and factory workers probably only see a fraction of that money.

My visit to the factory was quite timely actually - the sky was literally chucking buckets of water down on Santa Clara!

The other things that I happened to also see were:

3. Monumento a la Toma del Tren Blindado - a memorial showing the bulldozer that Che used to derail an enemy train and capturing all their ammunition





4. Smaller statue of Che holding a little boy (Estatua Che y Niño) - you can actually see Che close-up, alongside smaller thoughtful sculptures dotted around his body

5. Art gallery on Máximo Gómez (corner of Independencia) next to Casa de la Chocolate. Has some excellent artwork that are the results of local and regional competitions.

I thoroughly enjoyed the down time from the rain. It was nice chatting to Peter over ginger tea (he found it too strong); reading my book over a peso ice cream at the local Coppelia (corner of Eduardo Machado and Colón, opposite Hotel América); and eating satisfying meals at local peso restaurants (El Sol along Buen Viaje just off Parque Vidal, was very good - 6 on map).



But what I liked most about Santa Clara is that, unlike Trinidad, it seemed authentic and you are able to see locals getting on with their daily lives. I was only unsoundly occasionally hassled by taxi drivers and touts, and it was nice to see what I think is the real Cuba. Santa Clara also has some excellent contemporary art - street and galleries alike - which were refreshing.

Street art found along Marta Abreu, near the municipal bus station

Street art found near a residential estate

Peter was probably the best casa host I had in my time in Cuba, and I would highly recommend him:

Hostal Las Arecas (7 on map)
Avenida 9 de Abril (San Miguel) no. 106
e/ Zayas y Alemán
Santa Clara
Mobile: +53 53733058, +53 52709632
Landline: +53 42 299818
Email: pedromaryoil@nauta.cu (better to call than email - Cubans still cannot readily access the Internet)