Club Bucanero, Santiago Cuba

February 15 – February 22

Last year Roger and I went with my golfing friends, Marty, Mickey and Jim and wives to Cayo Largo. This year just the two of us went to this budget resort. I had always wanted to go to this area of Cuba since I had not been there before and like to see new areas. For $718 each for an all-inclusive week I was not expecting too much.

I had not flown Sunwing before and their service on the plane is above average. They serve a warm meal and have a decent movie.

The resort is not far from Guantanamo and the hills where Fidel Castro started his revolution. The hotel is in the Gran Parque Natural Baconao.

The hotel is a half-hour from the airport and that was good because we had gotten in late. There was a snowstorm the day before in Toronto so there were delays. The room was interesting in that the walls are made out of big round rocks cemented together. We were in room 111, which is about as far away as you can get from the main part of the hotel but near the beach bar/disco. The room was probably used as a nautical shop like the room next door. We didn’t complain. The view of every room is of the ocean but we had a defunct tennis court in front as well.

The hotel has basically a couple of bars: one near the pool and one at the small beach. They tend to run out of beer and that was a sore point with us. Apparently there is a lot of theft there by the staff. They get the stuff out of the resort by bribing the guards. The place just opened up after getting hammered by the Wilma hurricane so I imagine things are not up to scratch yet.

Getting a dinner at the a-la-carte was a farce. Enough said but we finally got it by the last night. Eddie and Laura had dinner with us. Dinners at the resort were quite foul and not enough fowl for Roger. Breakfast and lunch were all right.

The Internet did not work because the server had died. When we had the tour to Santiago the guide proudly pointed out the big school of computer science. I wondered why they didn’t have the Internet working!

There are a lot of good things about the resort. The rocky shore and the bluffs are quite interesting and good to photograph. There are caves and rock climbing to do. Eddie and I climbed the bluffs one day; that is where we met the bull on the path. The plants there have lots of sharp prickles on them and they got me bloodied. There is a canyon behind the beach bar, which is very cool. The weather was the best I ever had in Cuba.

We met Laurie and Steve who rented a car so we went with them to the Big Rock (see the photo album). That is a long ride up hairpin turns to a look out which is 1234 meters above sea level. Apparently you can see lights on Jamaica at night; it is 77 miles away.

Roger and I had a long ride out on the Hobie Cat catamaran with the Cuban driver who was quite hung over. We did a tour of Santiago. One of the interesting places is the barracks where Castro tried to get guns in 1953; I have a reprint of the story below. We also used the bikes to go for a ride in the countryside. Roger’s chain broke about 2 km from the resort and a Cuban man helped us. He used two rocks to hammer the chain back together again and that seemed quite ingenious. Eddie and Laura went on a paddleboat ride with us along the coast; after swimming in the sea we saw a big splash from some huge fish!

The bar by the little beach is just wonderful. You sit there drinking a beer, watching the sea and have iguanas visit you. They have a chicken or fish lunch available too. In dire times they will have tube steaks or hamburgers from Chile. The beach is somewhat rocky and Roger cut himself the first time. But the water is teeming with fish so snorkeling was a breeze.

The resort is not for everyone but budget minded souls. I think we would go back if not just for the perfect weather. Moreover, the toilet worked and had a seat!

Here is the story about Castro’s first attempt at revolution. See the photo in the album of the Moncada barracks and you will see the original bullet holes from the attack!

(reprinted from The Rough Guide to Cuba, Fiona McAuslan and Matt Norman, May 2005)

The Attack on the Moncada Barracks

Summing up his goals with the words "a small engine is needed to help start the big engine", Fidel Castro decided in 1953 to lead an attack to capture the weapons his guerrilla organization needed and hopefully also spark a national uprising against the Batista regime. Santiago's Moncada Barracks seemed perfect: not only was it the second largest in the country, with some thousand-odd troops, but it was also based in Oriente, where support for the clandestine movement against the government was already strongest.

The attack was organized from Havana in such secrecy that only two members of the group, besides Castro himself, even knew of the plan - some of the supporters thought they were being taken to Santiago carnival as a reward for hard work. Castro shrewdly chose July 26, reckoning that many soldiers would be unfit to fight in the early hours of the morning after carousing at carnival the night before. He rented a farm at Siboney, about 14km from the city, and the attackers mustered here. With limited funds and only a few secondhand weapons, it was an ambitious military debut for the small cell of 135 men and two women who would stage the attack.

A three-pronged assault was planned, with the main body of men, led by Fidel Castro, attacking the barracks themselves, while Raul Castro, Fidel's brother, would attack the nearby Palace of Justice, overlooking the barracks, with ten men to form a covering crossfire. At the same time, Abel Santamaria, Castro's second-in-command, was to take the civil hospital opposite the Palace of Justice with 22 men; the two women, his sister Haydee Santamaria and his girlfriend Melba Hernandez, were to treat the wounded.

The attack was an unqualified fiasco. At 5.30am on July 26, the rebels' motorcade of 26 cars set off from Siboney headed for Santiago. Somewhere between the farm and the city limits, several cars headed off in the wrong direction and never made it to the barracks. The remaining cars reached the barracks, calling on the sentries to make way for the general, a ruse which allowed the attackers to seize the sentries' weapons and force their way into the barracks.

Outside, things were going less well. Castro, who was in the second car, stopped after an unexpected encounter with patrolling soldiers and the subsequent gunfire alerted the troops throughout the barracks. Following their previous orders, once they saw that Castro's car had stopped, the men in the other cars streamed out to attack other buildings in the barracks before Castro had a chance to re-evaluate the situation. The rebels inside the first building found themselves cut off amid the general confusion and as free-for-all gunfire ensued, the attackers were reduced to fleeing and cowering behind cars. Castro gave the order to withdraw, leaving behind two dead and one wounded.

By contrast, the unprotected Palace of Justice had been captured successfully, although Raul Castro's group were also forced to withdraw once their role was rendered useless. Similarly, the attack on the hospital had also been successful, although the attackers did not receive the order to retreat and had to hide in the hospital itself, disguised as patients.

The aftermath

The real bloodshed was yet to come, however, as within 48 hours of the attack somewhere between 55 and 70 of the original rebels had been captured, tortured and executed by Batista's officers after an extensive operation in which thousands were detained. The casualties included Abel Santamaria, whose eyes were gouged out, while his sister, Haydee, was forced to watch. Her boyfriend, Boris Santa Coloma, was castrated and other prisoners were beaten with rifle butts before being shot. The soldiers then attempted to pass the bodies off as casualties of the attack two days before.

Thirty-two rebels survived to be brought to trial, including Fidel Castro himself. Others managed to escape altogether and returned to Havana. Although a disaster in military terms, the attack was a political triumph: the army's brutality towards the rebels sent many previously indifferent people into the arms of the clandestine movement and elevated Fidel Castro - previously seen as just a maverick young lawyer - to hero status throughout Cuba.

Quebec City Carnival

January 29 – February 1

Last summer Johnson and I were in Quebec City and liked the place so much we decided to visit it in the winter and take in the Winter Carnival. So we went back and again stayed at the fabulous Fairmont Chateau Frontenac. Well, we didn’t get the Gold Room this time but had access to it anyway.

We had just come back from Mexico and now were experiencing extreme cold in Quebec. Each day was quite different. The first was the most frigid and windy but the sky was bright blue. The other days were cloudy and slightly warmer.

The Carnival was a fairly low key event and there were only a few venues in service. As we were there during the week all we could see was the display on the Plains of Abraham and the Ice Castle in front of the Provincial Parliament buildings. You have to buy a pass for $10 to visit these places. There are more activities on the weekend.

As usual, we did a lot of walking and taking of pictures. Johnson found out that his super camera did not like the cold too much and had battery problems. My little camera never had a problem and the batteries would go on forever. That was a good topic for teasing Johnson.

We took the ferry to Levis that was a great ride. The ice on the St Lawrence river doesn’t freeze up in the cold winter due to the strong current. Now, the surprising thing was that the ice started to actually run uphill toward Ontario! The reason, of course, is that the tides are strong enough to overcome the current and send the ice to the west.

There is a wine store called SAQs beside the Frontenac. It is really worth a visit to see the prices. Many big bottles had price tags of over $3000! The normal bottles were easily $175. If you are cheap like I am I’d recommend Henry of Pelham Cabernet Sauvignon for $17; this is what the Fairmont uses for big buffets.

Fairmont Mayakoba Golf Resort

January 7-13 2007

Johnson and I visited this wonderful 5 star resort at the beginning of this year. Luckily Johnson gets a discount so that we got a very good deal to stay there. Normally guests pay a minimum of $500 per night and that can go up to $1700 per night if one takes the beach side individual units with personal swimming pool. Luxury is very nice.

Since this was not a package tour we had to arrange everything ourselves. The first problem was to get to Mexico and then the resort near Playa del Carmen. Thank goodness for the Internet. One can take "air only" packages from tour operators who have some plane seats left over. These tend to be expensive and, due to Johnson's work schedule, we could only be in Mexico for six days so could not use that. Air Canada also flies directly to Cancun but they charge an arm and a leg. The least expensive alternative was to use expedia.ca to look for flights out of Buffalo, New York. Indeed, we found that US Air would fly to Cancun for less than CAN$500 return each.

That would have worked out all right if we got the original flight time that we wanted as we could have driven the same day to Buffalo and parked at the airport. However, there was a cancellation of a flight so we had to take the 07:30 flight out of Buffalo. So we stayed over at the Days Inn, which is right across the road from the airport; they offer a deal to park the car. That costs about CAN$150.

The US Air system uses a hub concept so that you have to fly to the center of the hub and then off again so there is no direct flight from Buffalo to Cancun. We had to fly to Philadelphia and then to Cancun. Because our original flight to Philly was gone we took 8 hours to get to Cancun.

The fairmont.com site gave us an idea how to get to the Mayakoba resort from the Cancun Airport using viator.com. We booked a van online and they were quite professional. The Cancun airport is a zoo so we were happy to have an easy out instead of dealing with taxi drivers and so on. The resort is about 40 minutes south of the airport; Cancun is just north of the airport. On the way we passed the infamous Barcelo resort where the Italian-Canadian couple were killed in 2006.

The Mayakoba resort has a number of different properties. There are the deluxe ones I mentioned above. The most popular ones seemed to be apartments in house like units; you can see pictures in the album with this blog. There are other units that are housed in a building much like a hotel. We stayed in that kind of place. The rooms are spacious with a large HD Samsung TV, Bose radio, balcony and bathroom. The bathroom has two sinks; a bathtub and a glass enclosed shower. There is a little room also for luggage and a safe.

The resort also supports conventions and has a big place for that. There is a spa and a beautiful golf course. There are three restaurants: one is a buffet by the canal, another is a seafood restaurant in the main building, and there is a "fine" dining by the ocean. There is a small shop where you can buy sandwiches and Coronas!

We liked the buffet the best. They would have lots of shrimp and a special each night like tender roast beef, Mexican fahitas and so on. The breakfast was equally good. The fine dining was a bit of a disappointment but was a pleasant enough time. The problem was that the servings were a bit dainty and the wine was awful. There was good live music.

There are a number of swimming pools that are very imaginative. The main pool is in the middle of the property and is very complex with fountains, kiddy pool and a swim up bar. The pool by the buffet restaurant is simple and square but its edge is right on the canal and raised up quite a bit. The beach has a similar pool but is rounded in many ways.

The beach is nice sand and faces east so the sunrises are directly in front. The beach goes for miles in either direction. Although it is not wide, there is plenty of room.

The other blog relates our trip to Chichen-Itza. That was a major tour for us and is really wonderful to see all the old remnants of an extinct civilization. There are ruins in many places like Tulum but we didn't go down there.

One day we walked from the resort south to Playa del Carmen. The map we had, which was obviously not to scale, looked like we were pretty close but it turned out to be about 20 km or a 3.5-hour walk. We asked a staff member at our hotel that seemed to know the distance correctly. We didn't mind as we had lots of picture taking opportunities along the way. There were hotels, defunct buildings, public beaches, new hotels being built, packed hotels and even a four-man swat team patrolling the beach.

In Playa del Carmen we walked around a bit. There are shops and restaurants everywhere. We ended up in a Taco restaurant and had a number of them and Coronas. We were hungry so had some nachos as well, which had lots and lots of cheese on them. It was a plain place where you could look outside and see everyone walk by and store owners trying to snag him or her - mostly to no avail.

We took a taxi back to the hotel (about US$15). Unfortunately Johnson had stomach flu that night. Luckily I didn't get it so it wasn’t the tacos. I believe that it is maybe because I had the flu shot. Anyway he was all right the next day.

We had fun touring the resort. The place is huge and the main part is pretty far from the sea so you have to take a golf cart there and back or take a boat. We liked the boat the best as it wound around the place. We met a worker there called Gilbert who stayed and worked some time in Canada's west. He was funny and would do special tours so that Johnson could take some of his patented pictures. One can also walk or take a bike to the sea.

I was, of course, interested in the golf. This is a Greg Norman design and just opened in 2006. There was the first PGA golf tournament outside of the US or Canada last week; Fred Funk won at age 51. The course is a few hundred meters away from the hotel so we walked up there. The course is beautiful and has lots of water and goes through a number of different forests such as mangrove swamps full of alligators and so on.

We got an individual cart tour of the course by Freddy who works there. It is part of their job I guess. We toured the whole course; we didn't bother too many people because the course was pretty deserted. That will change when all the new luxury hotels in the area get finished.

The course is quite expensive to play US$249 in the morning, $60 for club rental and $17 for shoes. There is an afternoon rate of $149. Johnson doesn't play golf but his discount doesn't apply to me for the course. It would have been tempting to do the old switcheroo but I am not real keen on golf in the winter. My golf would be probably being bad for a high price.

One of the features of the course is the cenote (pronounced: sen-o-tee) on the first hole - right in the middle of the fairway. You can see a picture in the album. There is also another one on the second hole. The limestone giving way and creating a sinkhole causes them. The ground has lots of fresh water.

The weather is quite nice. The temperature is warm but it is often partly cloudy with a fair wind off of the sea. We experienced some rain, the worst of which was on the Mayan Temple tour. The weather in Buffalo was good as well so we had no problems driving.

The trip to Santa Lucia, Cuba was better than I expected (see the Santa Lucia Cuba photo album). For $750 for two weeks at Club Amigo Mayanabo I really cannot complain. As I went alone, it was interesting to have to find friends and I did that all right

I met an older Cuban taxi guy (Rene) who seemed sincere and was going to drive me to Cocoa Beach where they serve lobster (the Cuba clawless kind). After some Canadians landed I got three couples to go with me and everyone had a good time. We especially liked the music from some friendly local musicians. One guy says he is the second John Lennon. We went there a few times; once we walked about 6 km down the dirt road and then were picked up for the last 2 km by a veggie cart pulled by a tractor; we weren't even hitchhiking!

I hung out with a family group of June, Barbie, Gloria and Bill and a couple Anna and Mike. There were other new friends like Terry, Murray, Paul, Robert, Milo, Nina, Barb and so on. The staff was friendly and I liked Ramon and Jose who thought I looked like his father. He called me ‘padre’ and I called him ‘hijo’ (=son, pronounced ‘ee-hoe’). Mike and I really liked Cocoa Beach and being entertained by the singers. Once we had six of them sing on the beach at sunset just for the two of us! We even experienced old versions of Spanish music like Quantanamera done in rap!

The weather was mostly poor with clouds for 6 days in a row and some torrential downpours. We kept busy playing Ping-Pong, chatting, drinking or whatever. When the sun was out it was great so I got a tan eventually. The beach was good to walk and I did that a few times for exercise and for an excuse to have a few beers and then sit in the sun.

I went out on a big catamaran (25 pesos) to the coral reef which is the second biggest in the world after the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. We snorkeled out there and saw lots of small fish.

The pool was excellent and fresh water. It is fun to sit around the pool and there was no shortage of chairs.

There were a lot of Cubans there; they get perks from the government to stay there and I think that the hotel workers resent it. They are mostly loud but OK. Apparently they destroyed a hotel next door called the Caracol.

The room was a bit of a disappointment although I had one that I liked because no one was to the right and the left wall did not have an adjoining door. So it was mostly quiet. The toilet would get bunged up with toilet paper and I'd have to call someone in to debung it. I talked to the cleaning lady in Spanish and decided that putting the used toilet paper in the waste bin was a solution. It is kind of disgusting but it worked for the last two days. The refuse can had a lid so there was no smell but it is not very sanitary! Anyway I did not get sick at all although some of my friends had a few little bouts.

The mattress had a nasty pin in the middle so I flipped it. Another bugaboo was that my TV would get tuned to maximum loud when I was out of the room and give me a blast when I turned it on. Once I came back and it was on full blast! There was a decent selection of channels like CNN, HBO, ESPN etc. There were also three Chinese channels and the English CCTV 9 that I remember from my trip to China.

The food was really quite good; apparently it is the best in Santa Lucia. They had huge legs of beef, big pork roasts with crackle, a number of turkeys and so on. I liked the veal stew, as it was tasty. In the old days Cuban cooking was bland to not offend anyone but now they are willing to experiment. The lobster at Cocoa Beach was the best I can remember. We paid 10 pesos at the Cocoa Beach bar and my travel agent said we could do a similar meal for 29 pesos. (1 peso is about 1US$). It pays to go underground!

We all went to the taxi driver's home for coffee one Sunday. The have running water, electricity and TV but the homes are pretty much shacks. The coffee is black and very tasty and served in demi-tasse cups.

Would I go back? I might as they seemed to be fixing things all the time to make it better. They were scraping the old paint off some buildings and repainting. My old hot and cold shower knobs were changed to new shiny ones while I was there. Maybe they could get new mattresses and recycle them to the poor Cubans. The weather definitely sucked but looks good this week – of course. I would like to do the crocodile tour and maybe the Camaguey tour (take Rene’s taxi for 140 peso for 7 people instead of the tour bus at 69 pesos a head!). However, I have my sights on Santiago sometime as I have not been it that area yet; I prefer the southern part of the island for the better weather.

Have a nice winter!