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.

One of the days we were in Cienfuegos we went to a waterfall. The taxi we took to the water fall was so small it was hard to fit all of us in it. The taxi was falling apart and smelled like gasoline, but the driver was very nice. Once we got to the park, we walked through the jungle to get to the waterfall. The waterfall was cool, but you couldn’t swim under it. But there were some little pools in the river close to the waterfall that you could swim in.

Another day we rented some bikes and rode to Playa Rancho Luna which was a 22.5-mile ride roundtrip. The bike ride was mostly flat with some hills and lots of farms and banana trees. The beach was nice but not too fancy and had a couple bars and restaurants. The water was warm and clear with some little kelp forests. Something we noticed was that most of the people were Cuban unlike the other beaches we went to which were very touristy.

The last day in Cienfuegos we went on a ferry to a castle. The ferry goes all around Cienfuegos’ bay so by the time we got on it there were no seats for us, so we had to stand the whole ride. Once we got to the castle we only had an hour and a half to explore it. The castle was built almost a century before the city was. It used to be one of the most important castles in Cuba. The castle was kind of small so it took us a little more than half an hour to explore so by the time we were done we still had a little less than an hour till the ferry leaves. While we were waiting for the ferry we got some ice-cream sandwiches at a little store next to the castle. Then we got some nice seats on the ferry and had a nice ride back to Cienfuegos.