Cienfuegos

Cienfuegos is a large city that is on the southern side of Cuba next to a bay, and the last place we are visiting. It was founded in 1819 by a French emigrant who moved from Louisiana and brought forty families from New Orleans, Philadelphia, and France to settle a new town. Their first settlement got destroyed in 1821 by a hurricane. After the hurricane they renamed the city from Fernadina de Jaagua to Cienfuegos in hope of good luck. After the Independence war the sugar farmers from Trinidad came to Cienfuegos and started to use their money to build up the city. Unlike the windy streets in Trinidad, Cienfuegos’ streets are arranged in an almost perfect grid.

Trinidad

Trinidad is a small city on the south coast of Cuba that got settled by Spanish Conquistadores in 1514. In the 17^th century the city was full of pirates and smugglers that were participating in the illegal slave trade.  In the 1800’s French refugees came and set up sugar mills. Soon sugar became the number one industry in the region. During the Independence Wars that started in the 1870’s the sugar plantations got destroyed and Trinidad started to go downhill. In 1950 President Batista passed a preservation law that recognized the historical importance. Today tourism is the number one industry.

Main Plaza of Trinidad

Biking Through Valle de Viñales

After we left Havana, we went to Viñales, a small-town west of Havana. We rented bikes to explore the Valle de Viñales. The valley is famous because of the mogotes, which are steep limestone Mountains with a flat top. The mogotes are all that are left of a huge cave system that collapsed millions of years ago. There are still smaller caves in the valley.  On the sides of the mogotes there are lots of plants and trees growing. In other parts it’s just bare rocks that some people climb. While we were biking, we noticed a lot of different types of trees, pines and palms and a lot of other ones we don’t know, growing at the bases of the mogotes.

The Cuban Revolution of 1959

Before the Cuban Revolution there was a president named Fulgencio Batista. Batista was the president in 1940-1944 and again in 1952 until the Revolution. During Batista’s first presidency he was fair and was trying to create a democratic constitution for Cuba. Before he finished his first term as president he made a deal with the American Mafia to let them do want they want in Cuba and he gets money from their gambling business. While we were in Havana we stayed in a neighborhood with a lot of mansions where the mafia had lived and had their businesses. Nowadays, most of the mansions are run down. Batista didn’t get reelected but used the military to get back into power in 1952 and become president again.

Fidel Castro was also running for president in 1952 but then Batista came in and took over and canceled the elections. That made Castro very mad. Then Castro decided to start a revolution to kick Batista out of the presidency. Castro’s forces attacked the Moncada barracks and got defeated and Castro got captured. After Castro got captured, he had a trial and because he was a lawyer, so he represented himself. During his trial he gave a speech that became famous, “History Will Absolve Me.” After his trial Batista decide to exile Castro to Mexico.

Street Art: Callejon De Hamel

Salvador Gonzales Escalona is a painter that spent over two decades painting in Cuba, America, Venezuela, Norway, and Italy. But then in 1990 he started to paint the rundown alley, Callejon De Hamel, outside of his apartment in Havana. He started with the sides of the buildings and then moved onto the streets and side walks with sculptures. There’re benches made of bathtubs and a throne that “bestows good luck.” We went to visit the alley because it was not too far away from one of the places we were staying and it was supposed to be cool (it was).

Classic Cars in Cuba

I first heard about classic cars in Cuba when a teacher from my school went there and made a presentation about his trip and showed it to my school. When we first got to Cuba I noticed classic cars right away. My English teacher shared an article about classic cars and why there are so many in Cuba. One of the main reasons is because there were many trade restrictions after the Cuban revolution in 1959. No new cars were being shipped from America and it was too expensive to bring in cars from different countries. Since the revolution there have been some cars shipped from China and Russia.

Tornado hits Havana

We got to Havana, Cuba, Sunday morning after a red eye flight. We settled into our apartment, went out for some dinner, and got back to the apartment. After we got back it started to rain. Then after an hour the power went out and it started to get very windy. The windows and shutters wouldn’t stay shut and were swinging around and water was pouring through the windows, even the ones that were closes. There were big puddles in the living room and bedrooms. It wasn’t until the next day we realized it was a tornado that hit Havana because we got texts from friends and family asking if we were okay.

After the storm it was a sunny view.
During the storm these were the shutters that were flapping around and we couldn't get the window shut.
We couldn't see the tall buildings in the background because of the rain.

The tornado hit south of where we are staying but we still got high winds and lots of rain in a very short time. It killed 3 people and over 170 were injured. Buildings collapsed and cars were flipped. Tornadoes are very rare in Cuba, this was the strongest one since 1940. The wind speed got up to about 320km/h. Tornadoes are classified into 5 different categories, F-0 through F-5. F-0 are the mildest and F-5 are the most dangerous. The tornado that hit Havana was a F-3. It was a very exciting welcome to Cuba.

Sources and storm photos:

• Washington Post
• The Guardian