Drive from Trinidad to Santa Clara. Stopping at Torre de Iznaga. Sickly-sweet sugar cane juice. City tour between normality, revolutionary stories and art history.
Travelogue Cuba 2012 Santa Clara
We were nearing the end of our journey. Trinidad was the most southeastern point of our trip. On the return trip we were first heading towards Santa Clara, about 100 kilometers north on an unfavorable road connection.
Well, we were certainly going faster than that farmer, but not by much. Which was partly due to the road connection, but also partly due to many photo breaks 😉Not far behind Trinidad we stop at the Torre de Iznaga. It stands in the Valle de los Ingenios, the valley of the sugar mills. From here, among other things, the slaves and the work on the plantations were supervised.
view from the 50 meters high Torre de Iznaga over the Valle de los Ingenios
Here and in other places in Cuba you can drink freshly pressed sugar juice from sugar cane. To me, that was just sickly sweet. By the way, in other lines of Latin America you should be careful, because a certain bug could get into the press and you could then get infected with the extremely unpleasant Chagas disease (in this case, large parts of the body are attacked by parasites that are transmitted by the bugs).
I don’t have many pictures of Santa Clara. The town’s probably not on most tourists’ priority list either, which has its advantages. For the Cubans themselves, Santa Clara plays an important role far beyond the fact that an important victory was won here during the revolution. Santa Clara is thus “authentic” Cuba, even though I don’t particularly like that word.
Parque Vidal gives you the opportunity to just sit on a bench and watch what’s happening around you. Just normal life.
By the way, the darker sides of life in Cuba are for tourists not so easy to discover. Here in the square we make the acquaintance of a young German, daughter of a Cuban and a German. He tells us how he talked to other tourists here at Parque Vidal. However, because he looks like a Cuban, he was subsequently told by police to stay away from tourists. This society is definitely not free.
The city is filled with memories of the last great battle of the revolution. Decisive for the war was that Che Guevara was able to stop a train with troops and weapons of the dictator Batista.
And also apart from the stories of the revolution, there are beautiful things to see, as here the Museo de Artes Decorativas de Santa Clara.
