Cienfuegos

Cienfuegos, according to our guidebook "the Paris of Cuba." Our last stop in Cuba before before heading back to Havana and flying home. When we first arrived, we weren't sure if we agreed with our guidebook's statement. Our apartment was much different then we were expecting and we were disappointed. Chocolate filled churros helped turn our frowns upside down when we found them a couple doors down the next morning, although we learned that you shouldn't eat two in a row even though they only cost 3 CUP, an eighth of a CUC or about 10 US cents. We spent the rest of our day looking for what made our guidebook call Cienfuegos the "Paris of Cuba," sadly we never found what did.


Perhaps the author was referring to its French founder Don Luis D'Clout, who gathered 40 families from around the US and France and brought them to Fernadina de Jagua in 1819. Unfortunately their settlement was destroyed by a hurricane in 1821, but they rebuilt it and renamed it Cienfuegos, after the governer of Cuba, and because they were suspicious of the old name having some sort of bad luck. Their suspicions must have been true, because after the arrival of the railway in 1850 and the end of the War of Independence (1868-78), there was a huge increase in wealth and the local merchants invested much of it into architecture resembling that of their French forefathers. So, renaming their settlement appeared to give them good luck. And, the classical architecture and broad streets persist today in the city's design.

In Trinidad there were a ton of people asking us if we wanted to take a taxi or a caballo to some waterfalls, we politely refused each time, but in Cienfuegos we took a taxi to some waterfalls called El Nicho and realized they were likely the same waterfalls. It is a beautiful spot. There are several places where you can go swimming, and you can hike to the top of the mountain where the water is coming from. We didn't hike all the way up because you needed to go with a group, but not enough people showed up to meet the group requirements. We did talk to some people who worked there and they said that at the top is a spring where they get water from for the restaurant at the bottom. We went swimming in one of the two swimming holes, then hiked back down. Our driver told us there was a good restaurant down the road, so we took his advice and had our favorite meal on the trip which also happened to be in the middle of a banana tree grove. After our delicious lunch, we reluctantly drove the one and a half hour drive back to Cienfuegos.

One of the water falls and swimming hole

There are beaches not far from the city, probably the most popular being Playa Rancho Luna. Rancho Luna is 18km (11mi) away from the city of Cienfuegos. On Saturday, the 16th, we rented and rode some bikes out to Rancho Luna. Since we were on bikes, we noticed how quickly you can get out of the city. After a long bike ride, we started to go over the top of a hill, and on the other side the beach was right there. Playa Rancho Luna is a flat beach bordered by palm trees. The water is the perfect temparature to cool down but not be freezing, and you can even step on the occasional cut in half beer can. We didn't spend too much time at the beach, since it was becoming a bit late in the day and we were getting hungry. A group decision led us back up to the top of the hill, mentioned earlier, and to a small restaurant, where my brother got his favorite meal to date, however mine was not so good. The ride back consisted of potholes, horse poop, and broken glass which we adopted a warning for each other with our bike bells. Despite the road "hazards" it also offered a pleasant break from the city, with big fields and palm trees lining the road. We arrived at the bike rental with a friendly welcome, and went home for the day.

Along with the French like architecture, Cienfuegos surrounds Cuba's most spectacular and important natural bay. Our last full day in Cienfuegos was filled by boarding a very Cuban ferry, and taking a 40-minute ferry ride across the bay to a rather unimpressive castle. However unimpressive the castle was, the history is of some importance. It was built almost a century before Cienfuegos became a settlement, in 1745. It took 7 years to build, and was designed by Jose Tontete. During the castle's time of glory, it was the third most important fortress in Cuba. What the fort lacked in size, it made up for in a pretty view of the bay. On the ride back, families coming from a day at the beach, filled the ferry to the brim with passengers. Luckily we had gotten on before the ferry stopped at the beach pick up stop and we were able to grab some seats. The ferry went back and forth from each side of the bay several times before heading back to the city.

We took a bus from Cienfuegos on Monday the 18th, and my mom talked to a French family and asked them if they thought that Cienfuegos was the "Paris of Cuba." They said they saw the same quote and that they couldn't see the resemblance. Cienfuegos was a very different place from the other places we traveled in Cuba, we only got hassled by taxi drivers, because that's a universal suffering everyone goes through. There is a whole commercial zone that had items you could't find anywhere else. Plus, tourism doesn't appear to be the primary industry, there were still plenty of tourists and casa particulares around but not like the other places we visited.