CUBA BY SEA KAYAK??? - In January 2015 I joined a sea kayaking trip sponsored by Sunlight Tours (sunlighttours.com) and led by Paddle Shack Muskoka (muskokapaddleshack.ca) to spend a week seeing Cuba from the seat of a kayak. I had visited Cuba some 40 years previously but had seen only the inside of a Varadaro tourist resort which is NOT my idea of how to get to know something of a country!
FIRST SEA KAYAKING PROGRAM IN CUBA - Paddle Shack/Sunlight Tours has arranged the program of sea kayaking trips in cooperation with a representative of one of Cuba’s state-owned tourist companies. After two years of working out the arrangements, Paddle Shack’s first trips were offered in 2014 and immediately proved to be a success. With scant advertising and Facebook posts, Paddle Shack has already attracted a full slate of clients from across Canada and Europe.
CUBA AS A TOURIST DESTINATION - Relations between Canada and Cuba have been
warm for a number of years and Cuba is the primary overseas winter holiday destination for Canadians. Cuba
also hosts visitors from other
countries, including France, Germany and China. In the future, it is possible that US tourists
may also be more widely welcomed as, in December 2014, President Obama announced that
relations between the US and Cuba would move towards normalization.
CULTURAL EXCHANGE - Groups, such as ours, are permitted to visit Cuba as part of a “cultural exchange” – and, helpfully, the Cuban tourist
company personnel handle the complex paperwork and permissions involved for
group travel in Cuba. As part of the
cultural exchange, groups are required to have a representative of one of the Cuban government travel
companies accompany them. What a
delight! Our guide was exceedingly knowledgeable, spoke impeccable English, was fun, and was an eager paddler. In other
words, our guide was a very happy addition to our group AND she handled all of the on-site hotel and government paper work. Whatever bureaucratic complexities are required by the Cuban government, the Cuban staff
have figured out how to make them painless for group visitors such as us.
BUS AND BOATS - We travelled from the airport and between
paddling venues on an exceedingly comfortable Chinese-made, Cuban government-owned
bus. The bus could
accommodate around 30 people and as our group was much smaller, we (and our
miscellaneous equipment) each had a double seat to ourselves as well as space for
wet gear in the back and space under the bus for other gear.
Below are our boats, which we understand are the ONLY good quality sea kayaks in Cuba, being loaded on what is probably the ONLY kayak trailer in Cuba being drawn by a Transtour bus which is, we understand, the ONLY bus in Cuba with a trailer hitch!
RELEVANT RECENT HISTORY - After the Soviet bloc collapsed, Cuba no longer received support from the Soviet government. This period, starting in the 1990s is known as the "Special Period" during which Cubans experienced considerable hardship while changing their economy (particularly farming) to accommodate to the altered conditions. To earn foreign currency, the Cuban Government established resorts on the north coast of Cuba. Cuba has two currencies. The Cuban Convertible Currency "CUC" which is convertible into foreign currency and Cuban Peso which is not convertible. The US embargo on goods (except food and medicine) entering Cuba continues to affect the economy.
Our Trip
SOUTH CENTRAL CUBA - Our trip focussed on the south coast of the central part of Cuba - in the Matanzas, Cienfuegos and Villa Clara Provinces. Those of us from Ontario arrived on a WestJet flight from Toronto to Santa Clara (on the upper right edge of the map).
Two of our party, from Victoria, met us at Playa
Larga (middle left on the map) where they had travelled by taxi from the Havana airport. (Public transport is sparse in Cuba, and
taxis are an efficient and not expensive way of travelling for tourists with
CUC. Our travels took us to Guama (north of Playa Larga), Cienfuegos and the Lago de Guanaroca (in the right-centre part of the map) and Guajimico and Lago Hanabanilla (in the bottom right part of the map).
RESTAURANT ON THE WAY TO PLAYA LARGA - One
of the unexpected delights and highlights of our trip was a lunch stop on our
way from the Santa Clara Airport to our first night’s accommodation at Playa
Larga. Since Raul Castro has become leader of Cuba following his brother’s (Fidel's) retirement from government
office, Cubans have been permitted to set up some small, privately-owned, businesses including home-based (less than 50 seats) restaurants. On the way from the airport, we stopped at a
road side restaurant located on a farm where we had a very good, and VERY
filling lunch (with what we later learned are the standard choices – pork,
chicken or fish with suitable vegetables, including ubiquitous rice and beans). Tables had been set up under a roof at the
back of the farm house.
In the farm yard was a horse cart, typical
of those we passed everywhere on the highways or traveling on unpaved paths/roads
next to the highways.
The farm yard was overseen, from a
distance, by a bull. Cattle are sparse,
and Cubans are now forbidden to slaughter cattle in an attempt to increase the
cattle supply. In retrospect, this
bull was a rare sight.
Playa
Larga
Our
first accommodation, Playa Larga, at the head of Bahia de Cochinos (Bay of
Pigs). We arrived after dark and after
an introduction to the Cuban highways which are almost empty of motorized traffic and with a
fair number of horse carts. On the way we passed through villages with large billboards
memorializing events of the Bay of Pigs invasion.
The resort consists of a number of individual bungalows around a paved set of streets and food is plentiful. The accommodation was not posh but, as kayakers, anything other than a tent seems luxurious!
The resort consists of a number of individual bungalows around a paved set of streets and food is plentiful. The accommodation was not posh but, as kayakers, anything other than a tent seems luxurious!
Bungalows are topped Chinese-made solar hot water heaters...
A walk along the beach at dawn revealed one of a number of Dive
Centres located around Cuba. (Reports
are that the diving is very good indeed!)
Playa Larga borders on the Cienega de
Zapata – a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve consisting of extensive wetlands and salt
marshes.
Our bus took us on a road built up through the marsh to an area of open salt flats from which we launched and made our way across to an opening in the reef giving onto the sea.
We chased (and caught and released) blue crabs...
Guama
That evening our bus brought us to Guama on the Lago del Tesora, a few miles north of Playa Larga. The resort consists of thatched huts built on stilts over the water and connected by wooden walkways.
That evening our bus brought us to Guama on the Lago del Tesora, a few miles north of Playa Larga. The resort consists of thatched huts built on stilts over the water and connected by wooden walkways.
An
image of the resort restaurant, built in the native, Taino, style is found on the 1
CUC coin.
I paddled through the resort just after sunrise...
We launched our boats...
and paddled across the Lake and through a mangrove swamp to the Guama crocodile farm. At Guama we tried crocodile meat - which the whole group liked!
Pascaballo, Cienfuegos Bay
From Guama our bus took us around Cienfuegos bay to a Soviet-style hotel at Pascaballo, at the mouth of Cienfuegos Bay and across from the Jagua Fort. Alas, there was no time to take the ferry across to see the Fort. (It's on my list for the next visit!)
From Guama our bus took us around Cienfuegos bay to a Soviet-style hotel at Pascaballo, at the mouth of Cienfuegos Bay and across from the Jagua Fort. Alas, there was no time to take the ferry across to see the Fort. (It's on my list for the next visit!)
Our bus took us to a charming sea-side
restaurant at La Milpa, just inside Cienfuegos Harbour, where we launched and
paddled past a crumbling abandoned Soviet naval base.
and into Laguana de Guanaroca where
flamingos feed (but alas my camera failed), an owl nests in the underside of a
bridge, and there was a lovely walk to Rancho Luna which has a café along the
roadside.
On the way back to La Milpa, we passed the
rusting remains of a Soviet submarine...
and an abandoned trawler.
La Milpa offered lovely swimming
and
a local putt-putt ferry which made me wonder if it had a make-and-break engine of the sort once used in the Canadian arctic...
Lunch was idyllic, looking out over Cienfuegos Bay
Laundry was flying in the wind on the line next to the restaurant…
A MAGNIFICIENT rooster surveyed his
harem(s) behind the restaurant
and a Peacock draped its tail in another part of the yard...
In sum, this was one of those rare days when one has gentle, interesting, delightful fun and things couldn’t be
more “right with the world”.
The day ended with a glorious sunset, following a drive through the rolling, countryside to Playa Guajimico,
on a bay inset from the sea.
Continued in Cuba By Sea Kayak Part II..... http://annamallin.blogspot.ca/2015/02/cuba-by-sea-kayak-part-ii.html
