Maria's Travel Blog

Thursday, April 19, 2007

Panama Canal

The Panama Canal is a marvel. I was expecting either to be bored or completely overwhelmed by all technical information. On the contrary I found it impressive and fascinating.

The Miraflores Locks, one of three sets of locks on the canal, are located 12km outside Panama City. Here there's a platform where you can watch the vessels pass through, as well as a museum covering the history of the canal, and a film which explains how the locks work (I needed this bit).

The transit from the Pacific to the Atlantic side works like this:

Pilot boards vessel on Pacific side - Miraflores Locks - Miraflores Lake - Pedro Miguel Locks - Culebra/Gaillard Cut (13.7km) - Gatun Lake - Gatun Locks - Atlantic Ocean

Some interesting facts:-

- The canal stretches 80km from the Pacific to the Atlantic side
- 14000 vessels pass through a year, on average 38 vessels every 24 hours
- It takes 8-10 hours on average to cross from the Pacific to the Atlantic side
- Vessels are assisted through the canal by tugboats and locomotives
- 52 million gallons of freshwater (rain water accumulated in Lake Gatun) is released into the ocean with the passage of each ship
- Vessels pay according to their weight. Smaller ships pay a minimum of USD 500. The most ever paid was USD 249,000
- 69% of traffic originates or ends in the US
- It's the only canal in the world where the Captain or shipmaster has to pass control of his vessel to a specially-trained pilot
- There are expansion plans underway to allow larger vessels to pass through

Panama City

(Photo - view from Cerro Ancon)

Into Panama

I'm leaving Cuba today for Panama and there's no water to have a shower, a fitting end that pretty much sums up Cuba - sometimes things work and sometimes they don't.

My travel agent has again annoyingly booked me into executive class alongside three identical looking business men who all eye me strangely. I'm wearing my hiking boots as they're too bulky to pack and look quite scruffy I imagine.

It's only about 1.5 hours to Panama City and as I emerge from the airport terminal I'm hit by the sultry heat. Shockingly my transfer (that I arranged only yesterday) is here to pick me up. I'm so used to things not working properly or not being on time that it's a pleasant surprise when once in a blue moon something I arranged works out.

The hotel is fantastic. Actually it's not a great hotel - dull and dingy with disinterested staff but the website is great. Check it as Ali G would say...
http://www.marparaisopma.com/english.htm

(Photo - hazy Panama City)

Friday, April 13, 2007

Maria La Gorda, Cuba

My final stop in Cuba is an isolated beach with one hotel on the west coast, famous for its great diving spots. Here the water is crystal clear and the reefs amazing, including a sheer wall of coral 2000 metres deep and a valley of black coral.

Maria La Gorda is named after a voluptuous Venezuelan girl who was abducted from the Venezuelan coast and abandoned here. In order to survive she was forced to sell herself to passing buccaneers.

The diving here is incredible, with many different corals including the elegant Gorgonian sea fans. Only 15 metres under water I can see over the sheer wall of coral plunging into the abyss. Over the edge there's nothing but deep blue.

Porcelain Rose, Orchideario, Soroa

Orchid, Orquideario, Soroa

Lady's Slipper (Phramipedium Longifolium), Orquideario, Soroa

Orchid (Trichoglottis Fasciata), Orquideario, Soroa

Spider orchid, Orquideario, Soroa

Orchid (Renautera Coecinea), Orquideario, Soroa

Orchid (Banda Tricolor), Orquideario, Soroa

Having gone a little orchid crazy lately, I negotiate with a taxi driver to take me to the Orquideario two hours away in Soroa. Before this trip I would have considered anyone who did that to be nuts. The gardens famous throughout Cuba supposedly have 700 species of orchid. I used to think orchids were overrated and never understood some peoples' obsession with them. I now think that's because whenever I've seen them in England they seemed rather drab and unexciting, leaving me distinctly underwhelmed and puzzled.

Here in the tropical regions of Central America there is a huge number of orchids (I'm writing this in Costa Rica where there are 2000 species of orchids, including hybrids, of all shapes, sizes and colours). Delicate and intensely perfumed, some resemble insects more than flowers.

Although I don't see anywhere near 700 species (admittedly it's not the best time of the year for orchids to be in flower) I'm still impressed, and this time make an effort to jot down their names, although it's unlikely I've spelt them all correctly.

Thursday, April 12, 2007

Cueva del Indio, Viñales, Cuba

The Cueva del Indio is a completely different experience. With its wide concrete paths and floodlit walls I feel like I'm entering a museum or worse an amusement park. The cave opens out on to an underground river where a boat is waiting to take us to the finishing point.

Cueva de Perlas, Gran Caverna de Santo Tomás, Viñales, Cuba

Curtain stalactites, Gran Caverna de Santo Tomás, Viñales, Cuba

Gran Caverna de Santo Tomás, Viñales, Cuba

I realise it's an authentic caving experience as we don hard hats with headlamps and follow the resident speleologist to climb the side of a mountain. 20 minutes later we reach an entrance known as the Cueva de Avispas (Wasp Cave) as it was full of wasps when first discovered.

Walking through the dark, damp grottoes I'm mesmerised by the giant forms of stalactites and stalagmites formed 150 million years ago. I feel my way through the grottoes climbing up and down rickety ladders and pulling myself through on ropes until I reach the Cueva de Perlas (Cave of Pearls) where the walls appear to glisten with diamonds. I'm told this is due to a high concentration of calcites. I'd like to touch but it's forbidden.

Gran Caverna de Santo Tomás, Viñales, Cuba

The Gran Caverna de Santo Tomás is Cuba's largest cave system and the third largest in Latin America (the most extensive ones are both in Mexico). It has over 46km of galleries on eight levels. Only one kilometre on the sixth level is accessible to the public; the rest is open only to speleologists and scientists.

Viñales, Cuba

Carolina tree, Jardín de Caridad, Viñales, Cuba

In the Jardín de Caridad is the same pink flower that Lulo picked from the tree on the Orinoco River. I finally learn its name - Carolina.

Jardín de Caridad, Viñales, Cuba

Just out of town is the Jardín de Caridad, an eclectic messy garden of exotic flowers and fruit trees oddly interspersed with dolls heads on sticks. It's owned by two elderly sisters and managed by a handful of part time gardeners who provide the guided tours.

On my walk the gardener asks if I have somewhere to eat tonight and recommends the house of one of her friends who is a fisherman. I can't believe I'm being hustled by a gardener on a guided tour.

Mogotes, Viñales, Cuba

The Viñales Valley is famous for its mogotes, limestone karsts covered in thick vegetation. These are the most ancient rocks in Cuba and all that remains of what was once a limestone plateau. Over millions of years underground aquifers eroded the softer limestone forming large caverns whose ceilings later collapsed leaving only the hard limestone.

Viñales Valley, Cuba

Can't face bus-ing it back to Havana so fly back instead and catch a bus to Viñales, a sleepy town in the province of Pinar del Rio in the west.

The Viñales Valley has been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site since November 1999 to protect the unique karst landscape. As soon as I arrive I begin to relax. Life moves at a slow pace in the Cuban countryside and the locals take advantage by kicking back in their front-porch rocking chairs and watching the world go by.

Orchid, Jardín de los Helechos, Santiago, Cuba

Bamboo orchid, Jardín de los Helechos, Santiago, Cuba

Croton, Jardín de los Helechos, Santiago, Cuba

Heliconia, Jardín de los Helechos, Santiago, Cuba

Orchid, Jardín de los Helechos, Santiago, Cuba

Eager to escape from the city bustle and noise I take a taxi to the Jardín de los Helechos (Garden of Ferns) 2 kilometres outside Santiago.

Immediately I'm entranced. It's a lush wonderland of exotic plants, including 350 types of fern and 90 species of orchid. The Director of the garden is a graphic designer by trade and designed the garden himself. It now has seven full time gardeners to lavish care on it and provide guided tours. I spend a good two hours wandering around and although I try to remember all the names by the time I've left I've forgotten them again. Perhaps my Orchid Flickr friend from San Francisco can come to the rescue again?

Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Santiago de Cuba, Cuba

As the hotel is fairly central, the noise never seems to cease. Live music starts playing as early as 7am right into the night. The novelty of being woken up by maracas and guitars has grown thin after the first night.

Not only that the hotel doesn't seem to have any running water at times.

(Photo - View from my hotel window)

Hiding from Jesus, Santiago de Cuba

I stumble across live music everywhere, not least in a second-hand bookshop.

On the walk around town, a friendly hustler called Jesus attaches himself to Al and I and effectively won't leave until we agree to go to a paladar (state run restaurant) he recommends. He makes me feel particularly guilty as he says he'll receive a bottle of cooking oil if we show up.

Although we arrive late, he's waiting for us on the corner and has been there for the last hour and a half. He comes into the restaurant with us and sits down. Out of politeness I offer him a drink and soon we're buying him dinner. We're suddenly his best friends and he insists we go to his house for dinner tomorrow night to meet his wife and children. Although we say we're not sure what we'll be doing the following day he refuses to listen and says he'll meet us on the corner of the main square.

Despite our best attempts to avoid the square the following evening, he somehow spots us, rushes over shouting 'over here my friends!' and says his wife has prepared dinner for us, although I don't think this is true. I say that we already have plans tonight and walk into a restaurant. He still refuses to listen and says the restaurant is expensive and not that good so he'll be waiting for us downstairs. Luckily he has disappeared when we emerge two hours later.

Santiago de Cuba, Cuba

A view of the balcony from the Casa Velázquez where Fidel Castro gave his first speech to the Cuban people in 1959. La Casa de Diego Velázquez, of Mudejar influence, is considered to be the oldest Colonial house in Cuba, and probably in America.

Santiago de Cuba, Cuba

It's a long journey from Trinidad to Santiago on the bus, precisely 13 hours. I'm tired of staying in 'casas' so this time opt for a cheap hotel which I grow to regret.

Founded by Spanish conquistador Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar in 1514 Santiago de Cuba is Cuba's second largest city after Havana and is the origin of traditional Son rhythms.

It's also known as the cradle of the Revolution, as in 1953 the Cuban Revolution began with an failed armed attack on the Moncada Barracks in Santiago, by small group of rebels led by Fidel Castro.

(Photo - Santiago de Cuba from Balcon Velázquez)

Banana plantations, Valle de los Ingenios, Cuba

Sugar cane plantations, Valle de los Ingenios, Cuba

View from the watchtower

Watchtower, Valle de los Ingenios, Cuba

The watchtower from where the slaves were watched

Train to Valle de los Ingenios, Trinidad, Cuba

The steam train to the Valle de los Ingenios (Valley of Sugarmills) is painfully slow. As we pass field after field of sugar cane the soot billows into the first carriage forcing most of the passengers to retreat to the rear carriage.

Our main stop is Manaca Iznaga, an estate purchased in 1795 by the dastardly Pedro Iznaga who became one of the wealthiest men in Cuba by trafficking slaves.

A 44-foot watchtower overlooks the sugar cane fields where the slaves were closely watched.

Graffiti, Trinidad, Cuba

Cuban, Trinidad, Cuba

Cuban on Plaza Mayor

Trinidad, Cuba

One of the most interesting colonial houses to visit in Trinidad is the neoclassical Casa Cantero or Museo Histórico Municipal where Dr Justo Cantero alledgedly acquired vast sugar estates by poisoning an old slave and marrying his widow, who also suffered an untimely death. From the tower there's a great view of Trinidad.

(Photo - view of Trinidad from Casa Cantero)

Trinidad, Cuba

Trinidad is a small city surrounded by green hills in the province of Sancti Spíritus, which like Old Havana, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It was founded in 1514 by Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar under the name Villa De la Santísima Trinidad and is one of the best preserved cities in the Caribbean from the time when the sugar trade was the main industry in the region. In the nearby Valle de los Ingenios (Valley of the Sugarmills) vast sugar cane plantations can be visited, which at one time produced one third of the country's sugar.

There is a laid-back feel to Trinidad. The pastel coloured colonial houses, cobbled streets and palm trees lend it a real Caribbean flavour.

Trinidad, Cuba

Although my landlady in Santa Clara offers me a 'casa' with a friend of hers in Trinidad I opt to run the gauntlet of hustlers at the bus terminal and find my own. On consulting my guidebook I discover that Trinidad has over 300 casa particulares so it shouldn't be that difficult to find somewhere to stay.

On arriving at the bus station I'm not quite prepared for the hordes of Cubans waving laminated photographs of their rooms to rent. Weighed down by my backpack it takes me a good ten minutes to shake them off and walk towards the 'casa' I'd like to stay in.

Boy, Santa Clara, Cuba

Santa Clara, Cuba

Main square

Che Guevara memorial, Santa Clara, Cuba

There is really only one reason most people visit Santa Clara and that's to see the Che Guevara memorial. The town itself is pleasant enough, although nothing special.

Catching a bus at the terminal in Havana, the ticket lady asks if I have somewhere to stay in Santa Clara. I have barely said no when she produces an address and tells me that I'll be picked up at the bus station.

Following the three hour journey true to form I can see someone holding a piece of paper with my name scrawled on.

The Che memorial is two kilometres out of the city centre and includes a large bronze statue of Che, a museum about his life and a mausoleum where his remains are buried. Nearby is the eternal flame lit by Castro in 1997 when Che's body was recovered from a secret mass grave in Bolivia and returned to Cuba. The mausoleum is respectfully done. In Cuba Che is the embodiment of third world freedom. Whatever political leanings you may have, it's difficult not to feel affection for such an icon.