A Day on the Train
Saturday, January 6th, 2007Quickly… Took a train to a UNESCO site today called Valle de los Ingenios. Suppose to be an old sugar processing valley where dozens of sugar mills from the 1800s once operated. I saw little sign of these mills. I thought UNESCO was above the political fray. Now I am wondering if you can buy a UNESCO designation because this deserved it as much as Gary, Indiana does. The train was suppose to be an old steam train. I went into it skeptical because you have to be skeptical about everything here. Sure enough the steam train is not operating (for 49 years is my guess!) and we took some ridiculous diesel engine with a single car made in 1994 to look like something from an earlier age. I tried to take the locals train, but they seemed to only want me to go on the tourista train. Near the end of the line there is a 44 meter tower from the 1750s which was fun to climb. The views were nice. The countryside is very pretty here with nice hills and farmlands. I met Janet and Bridgette from Johannesburg and Richard and Pam from Birmingham and we all had a good time eating lunch, drinking beers at the last stop as well as drinks and ice cream back in Trinidad.
The most interesting thing today was also the most pathetic and just seems so normal for my past week. The four guys running the train were drinking beers when I got back to the train. At the first stop on the return trip they bought/received more beer in used plastic jugs and tin cans from a guy with a fermenter in the back of a box truck parked next to the tracks. Many local men were hanging out by the tracks partaking in his brew. Drinking and driving a train… why not! I have met drunks from Ukraine. We all know about the vodka drinking that goes on in Russia. And now I see Bacu is drunk off its ass, too. Communism… have another before you sober up and realize just how crappy it is!
Last night I went to Casa de la Musica to enjoy Cuban music outside on the old steps with a few hundred other people. As I have experienced elsewhere, very few Bacuans were present. The music was OK although the same twenty songs I hear each night were played. After the first band, though, I heard some great Afro-Bacuan music. They only did two songs, but those lasted almost an hour. The first included a male lead singer, female chorus and African drums. The second featured a female lead, male chorus, the same drummers and dancers dressed in very bright African-ish clothes. The lead singer and drummers played for about forty-five minutes straight and they were truly awesome. I’m not sure many people in the audience appreciated what they were doing on stage. I’m not sure the music is as good in Bacu as I had expected, but I am thankful that there is some sign of a pulse here. If that is what makes it such a great place with soul, vitality and character… sure.
I am currently toying with the idea of going west to Pinar del Rio area on Monday where there are beautiful hills and rock formations for the last part of this visit or heading back to Havana tomorrow and catching the first flight possible to Panama. I can think of better things to do in Panama or move on to Colombia sooner than planned, but will see how things go tonight before I leap. I will say that many of the tourists I see are not experiencing the same Bacu as I am, but that is why you must take everything anyone ever tells you about their experience as just that – they’re experience. I do seem to be a magnet for “amigo, I have a friend who works in the cigar factory, would you like to buy the real thing” as demonstrated this afternoon when they seemed to single me out of the five of us. I wonder what it says about me that they want to sell me their illicit cigars and bodies?????? Take me back to Latin America where I seem to get more respect, please!
vagabondrick