Part 4 - Bayamo to Antilla

The next night we agonized over the map we’d recently proven had omitted one of the countries largest fishing reservoirs. We tried to supplement its lies with the misguided guidebook. We knew we wanted to get away from this area and to try getting in the water some other way. So, we thought maybe we’d give the rivers a rest and head for a coast, any coast. In this random and desperate way we came up with the Atlantic coast village of Antilla. It wasn’t listed in our guidebook, but so what? At that moment it looked delicious, on our map, at the top of a bay with lots of little inlets and interesting looking coastline. The map legend indicated that it was probably mostly mangroves or swamp, but having been assured there were no carnivorous reptiles way over there, we optimisticized that mangroves would probably be fun to paddle around, anyway.

But how would we get to this place? It looked a little remote. We would have to go up to Holguin, probably, then perhaps towards Banes. But we didn’t want to go as far as Banes. It looked like one would have to get off the bus about 15 km before Banes, at a crossroads with the highway to Antilla. But gettings to Banes didn’t look easy even from Holguin. Perhaps we’d have to take a bus to Gaudalavaca, which one might think would be easy, being a major resort area. Then from there we might be able to get another, similar bus to Banes. Banes, at least, was only 15 km from the crossroads to the highway to Antilla.

In other words, we thought we might end up spending a couple of days trying to take buses and hitchhiking our way to Antilla. I wasn’t even sure that the very first step we’d postulated, which was going to Holguin, would even work. The system of the country seemed back then to conspire against us. In Cuba, as of this writing, the tourism infrastructure for backyaking packers is not in place. The tourist buses run very infrequently, and the tourist taxis are expensive.

We asked Fernando to call the bus terminal for us, to find out those infrequent bus times. We didn’t like the sounds of the times of day, nor the price. And what after Holguin? There were also the non-tourist buses, the Astro line, which were less infrequent and less costly, but didn’t go to Holguin or some other such problem. We discussed alternatives with Fernando. He suggested un coche particular, which means private car, and we liked that idea. He made a phone call and came back with the outrageous figure of $45, which we didn’t like. Okay, the route would be slow and complicated by bus, but in the end it didn’t look like it would even take two hours driving to get us there. We wouldn’t fall for that swindle!

We declined. To our surprise, instead of the person at the other end of Fernando’s phone making a counteroffer, the conversation just ended. We hoped we hadn’t burned our bridge before crossing it.

We sat with Fernando and discussed alternatives. Oddly, he didn’t suggest hitch-hiking, which we later discovered is possibly the easiest way to get around Cuba. But he did describe two state-operated ways of getting around. One is in the trucks, los camiones, that sounded like they left quite frequently, in most directions, and which cost mere pennies. They must have their gasoline subsidized, or it couldn’t work, but much is this way on that island. In Bayamo, the trucks left from around the bus terminal when they were full. Probably 30 or 40 passengers would be packed like merry sardines into the covered cargo section of these large mantransporters.

Another method of travel is with los Amarillos, meaning the Guys in Yellow. This one is brilliant. There are Amarillos stations at the side of every major road leaving every major town. If any citizen would like to journey in that direction, they just go to the appropriate Amarillos spot and get in line. The Guys in Yellow enforce the rule that all state vehicles must stop as they leave town and take as many passengers as there are empty seats. Apparently, it’s best to show up early in the morning. There is such little traffic in Cuba that “rush hour” is the only time of day to reliably see any vehicles at all.

These methods sounded interesting, and thus tempting, but in the end we decided that $45, though it seemed a little expensive for the distance, was really nothing when we considered it brought us right to where we could start paddling, as quickly as possible and in comfort. We apologetically requested Fernando to call his friend back and say we would accept the offer.

We also had some incredible ice cream that night. It wasn’t at all creamy, and it wasn’t unnaturally sweet, and it cost about a nickel for a cone. You often have to line up for ice cream.

The next day we had our first taste of travelling in private cars. Our driver was a young schoolteacher, as was his girlfriend who rode shotgun. We began to agree on some kind of story in case they were stopped by the police. We heard, over and over again throughout our stay in Cuba, whenever we’d take private cars, about the famous 1500 Peso fine that a driver can get for not being licenced to accept money for driving someone around. This equates to about $60. Therefore, a $45 “fare” is a gamble that could potentially lead to a loss, but most likely to a decent gain. The price of petrol cannot be discounted either, as it is very high at sixty cents a litre. Nor the age and size of the car and how much gas they consume. There are newer cars in Cuba, like Toyotas and Peugeots, which aren’t bad. The older ones are Ladas and other communist brands, and finally the oldest are all the many American cars from the 40’s and 50’s. But even if they spent $30 or more in gasoline, the gamble was worth potentially taking $15 home. A teacher may make that much money in a month.

So our story, in case stopped by the police, to perhaps give them a better chance of not receiving the fine, was that we were friends from before, and we’d met in chat over the internet. The guy happened to teach Computer Science and Mathematics, so it might be plausible.

We did end up driving right through Holguin, and then into the hills to the east. The drive was through the most beautiful countryside we’d seen, certainly more topologically eventful than we’d seen yet in Cuba. We’d spent hours upon hours staring at the flat countryside we passed during that marathon train ride. The most remarkable things had been that it seemed like there was hardly any large-scale agriculture and that there are dozens of buzzards patrolling any given section of sky in central Cuba.

But there, deep in El Oriente, as we drove with the teachers, the scene had changed. Rolling hills, lush forests, small farms, horses, goats, old guys with big cigars. Absolutely gorgeous. Anyone that’s ever thought it would be pleasant to “retreat” to a pure and simple life in rusticity would feel it and Know.

By the time as we made the turn onto the road to Antilla, the scene had changed again. Our first view of the sea outside of Havana was as we came over the last foothillock and we descended into an endless and perfectly level plain. These featureless flats merged into monotonous mangroves and onto a broad bay. My heart sank, but I made an outward show of enthusiasm for the sake of morale.

We rolled into town and our driver started asking around for a casa for us. We always made this agreement as part of the deal when arranging a private car. Of course, another standard part of the whole transaction is that payment is made to the driver right near the end of a trip, but before actually arriving in the destination town. That way no one would witness the money changing hands.

But in Antilla, no one he asked about a casa really seemed to have any ideas. Finally, one passerby, after glancing inside the car at us, doubtfully suggested a woman’s house further on. The whole town is strung out along the single road that comes out to find Antilla on its little peninsula. This road leads only to Antilla. Antilla is on the way to nowhere.

Then it expanded into a few parallel roads and we stopped at the house we’d been directed to. There was a sign above the door that looked just like the standard symbol for a licenced casa, one tent inside another, only it was red. The ones we’d seen had always been green. We sat in the car as buddy went to the door and knocked. After a desperate pause, she showed her head, and we watched him explain and point to us in the car. This is when she started shaking her head, a negation that became the tone for our stay in Antilla. They talked for a while, though, before she ducked back inside, still shaking her head. There was no question of her agreeing to our staying there.

The red logo means it’s a casa licenced for Cubans only. But one of the ideas she’d had was that we try the town’s only hotel. So, our driver, starting to be visibly frustrated about not being to easily dump us off, probably worried that the longer he loitered the more likely he’d get busted, set off for the centre of the town. He left the motor running as he ran into the hotel.

He came out less than a minute later, got back in the car and started driving again. He said the hotel was full and in any case didn’t take foreigners. Great. He then started saying that the old woman had suggested that we go to the central square and ask around for someone who might put us up. He was driving us away from that square, but only just far enough so that there weren’t so many people around to see us get out of his car with all our bags.

And before we knew it, there we were standing by the side of a sideroad in Antilla, and he was driving off, having accomplished to his satisfaction what we’d asked him to do. Later we’d be very annoyed with him for having “abandoned” us, but after all it was we that had had the crazy idea of going there, and there we were.

First we discussed going straight to the water, assembling and packing our boats and lighting the hell out of that dead-end place. It was already past two o’clock, and we’d never packed our boats before, so, realistically, we wouldn’t be setting out until 3:30 or 4:00, which seemed to be a bit chancy considering we had no idea where we were going to paddle from there. It is totally dark in Cuba by 7:00 pm. It was then that I found out that Jay hadn’t been too excited by the look of the bay, either, that his heart had sunk, too, when we’d first come over that hill and been faced with our prospected coastline.

Then Jay had the counter-idea that we could go directly to the hotel, set our bags down at the reception, and begin reasoning/pleading with them. Surely they’d take pity on us and we’d all come to an arrangement where someone made some money and we got shelter. Then we could circulate and get some local information on the bay and the surrounding coast.

It was a great plan that suffered only by not working at all. We ended up stranded in the hotel’s reception, the stone-faced bureaucrat on the other side of the desk steadfastedly pitiless. Before long we’d attracted the attention of a local drunk whose English was the best we’d heard in Cuba. In spite of this, something about him unnerved the both of us. Maybe it was the innumerable crude tattoos he had, including many phrases in Spanish. Que me mira? said one on his neck, I think. In fact, when we told him we were from Canada, he said “Oh, I have many friends from Canada. I love Canada!” and rolled up his shirt-sleeve. He was one of the few men in Cuba not wearing a tank-top, and on his upper arm he had a tattoo of the flag of Canada. He’d never been there, though, and combined with our plight it all added up to being very weird.

He was disconcertingly observant and intelligent and he seemed to have some kind of solution for every impossible query we came up with to get rid of him. For example, he had this radical idea to get us accomodated: demand to speak to someone from the government and tell them that we’re stuck in their town and have nowhere to sleep. He said that it would be the state’s responsibility to take care of us. It was illegal for foreigners to end up sleeping outside.

We soon noticed that we had used illegal transport to get there, there was no legal place for us to stay, nor was there a legal way for us to leave. The latter because there were no buses and certainly no tourist taxis. We were told while hanging out in the reception that Antilla gets maybe 4 or 5 foreigners coming through every year. It’s no wonder they didn’t have a clean way to handle us.

Cuba is in a transitory phase right now with respect to the kind of “backpacker” travel Jay and I were attempting. From my understanding, until recently there were tight controls over the movements of foreigners in Cuba. Travel within the country meant being a part of a tour, no alternatives. Now, with the Cold War finished and so on, there are far less limitations, but some of the mentality and previous rules still remain, perhaps illogically. It was no problem for us to be in Antilla, just a problem for us to get there, stay there, and leave there.

I’m sure we could have found someone to take a chance and put us up, but the guy with the tattoos, and later his brother, the Canadiana lunatic, were really setting us on edge. Everything pointed at Antilla being the wrong place for us to be, and little by little we were being led further into Freakedoutland. Jay and I started talking to each other in French in an attempt to communicate our mutual distaste for our situation, only to find tattoo-boy’s brother replying to us that he also spoke French. Creepier and creepier.

By then we were determined to find a car out of there, to anywhere, and we had our first taste of having one car owner after another turn us down, without even discussing price, because of a fear of getting caught by la policia. We took turns going to the square and looking for cars. Jay had found one guy that had said he’d do it, but he’d never shown up to get us. We thought the likelihood of scoring a ride, even the measly 15 km to Banes, was becoming more and more remote. Surely, by now, everyone in town must know we were there, which we imagined would make it even more difficult for a driver to get away with it. The day waned.

(For those impatient kayaker readers, be assured that in the next section we finally get on the water. And for those that don't care about that, first of all, shame on you, and secondly, be patient and assured that we soon got into much more trouble!)