By Roger Taylor If Cuba were any other
place in the world, life could have been a lot easier for us. I'm
talking food!
A strange sensation, really – money in the pocket, walking
the long svelte spine of this island, each tiny village or ‘batey’
with a ‘bodega’, or shop, yet this is ration book land
only, the ‘libreta’ basis of Cuban life in many ways,
and totally unavailable to myself and Reinol, the other ‘loco’
involved in this walk.
We've now covered over 1000km, from the lush, rolling mountain
green and crashing reefs of Baracoa in eastern Cuba, where a towering,
bleached sun bled us dry. Those were tough weeks at the beginning.
I, not exactly in tip-top physical condition, and Reinol had never
done anything like this before. Walking is anathema to all Cubans,
and walking hills with a pack weighing 45 pounds in that bleeding
sun... yes, we sweated. It felt crazy, intense, descending upon
lonely houses like rabid animals. ‘Can you let us have some
water? Is it cold water?’ Imagine Jack Nicholson in The Shining,
and you get the idea.
We reached the dry, rain-starved area inland, totally shade-less,
baked-hard earth tracks and the constant rustling echo of the sugarcane
around us, the tracks churned into waves and deep holes by the great
oxen carts that wallowed and plunged these lanes of deep mud just
a few weeks earlier. Long, long days, that same sun taunting and
haunting us. No conversation. Hacking and chewing sugarcane, seeking
tiny shade at midday to sleep a few minutes at the roadside, the
cane so redolent of Cuba's long, bitter-sweet history: you walk
and the air is syrup. The cane just whispers, flicks at you, silver
slash of machete but now abandonment, neglect. Most of Cuba’s
‘centrales’, or sugar mills, will not work this year
and most will probably never work again.
Nights spent in tiny villages, and often beside a lone house. Cuban
countryside folk always friendly, hospitable, kind... ready to share
with us whatever is on the table; the relaxation of dropping the
pack, pitching up camp, the sweat drying, and firing up our stove.
The classic multi-fuel primus now has a thousand fans upon this
island. Then, west of Holguin, finally the land flattens a little
and the weather cools just a tad. We miss that beautiful landscape
behind us, but life is easier and our steady 25km a day eats away
slowly at the maps. We always look, talk, one day ahead.
Climbing along close to the north coast and the great keys offshore:
long, low lines of mangroves and still, flat water. We enter swamplands,
and mosquitoes batter us day and night for five days. We buy fruit
for the first time in weeks, eat great quantities of guava, and
meet honey collectors – wild, lean, dark people with bees
still tangled in their clothes – who present us with pieces
of chewy honeycomb. Leaving behind the swamps and wildlife, our
nights are now spent in ‘vaquerias’, lonely cattle stations.
Cuban cowboy life: at night sweet, strong jet coffee, and stories
swapped between Reinol and these cowboys of Angola and military
service there in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.These men rarely leave
their isolated homesteads, yet so many served in Angola and, when
they talk, they nearly always talk of the landscape and the natural
beauty there, rarely of the conflict. Cubans are different.
We entered central Cuba, the great sugar lands where there is always
a tall mill tower on the sky-line, our nights spent in the open-air
yards of the mills, camping in the shadow of these hulking edifices,
talking with old folk who have lived and worked the sugar. Now it’s
gone, like a torn limb to these people, like a missing organ. At
times, I feel that I'm melting into all this: these stories, these
lives, these countryside dialects, and into the peace and strange
security of the countryside and small towns of Cuba.
Havana lies ahead of us, and I already know that it will be strange
to enter such a big city. I will miss the oxen, horses and hooves,
the stars flayed out all around me, the brilliance of growing moons
waxing and waning, the flick of a snake and the cries of birds in
the marshes at night. And these people, these countryside folk and
their giant hearts and courtesy towards strangers.
This walk goes on, a long, long way yet to Cabo de San Antonio,
the far tip of Cuba. I am raising money, through donations and sponsorship,
for a hospital in the town where my wife was born. There are no
politics attached to this. It’s quite simply a hospital with
a student faculty that, like many others, needs funds. It is in
the town of Nueva Gerona which is on an island to the south of Cuba.
You can sponsor me at Metal Crumble, 13, Stoke Newington Church
Street, N16 0NX, which is where I work. Thank you.
Roger, joint proprietor of Metal Crumble, is currently walking
across central Cuba from east to west to raise funds for a hospital
in the country. Many people we know find it a hassle to walk the
length of Church Street. What Roger is doing is heroic. Please support
this mammoth trek by sponsoring him. Donate as much as you can afford.
Visit Metal Crumble and get your wallet out.
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