Published On:Wednesday, August 25, 2010

By JACK HARDY

MANY Bahamians travel regularly to Cuba but most seem to stay exclusively in Havana.

Nothing wrong with this for Havana is a fascinating city that is almost impossible to write about without using oxymorons. I have already found my favourite place in Cuba - Santiago - but I am always ready to try somewhere new.

Sometimes the best incentive to visit a new place comes in the form of an invitation. When my Cuban friend Roberto told me he was getting married in Camagüey on July 17, 2010, I immediately accepted his invitation to attend.

My travelling partner was Mike, another of Roberto's friends.

We stayed in Havana for two days and then took a plane to Camagüey and landed close to midnight after a flight of an hour and a half.

During the rather lengthy taxi ride into town we saw no traffic and no pedestrians, rather eerie after the bustle of Havana.

We stayed in a central hotel, the Gran, and there must be an asylum nearby.

During the day you could not escape a motley crew of unfortunates that pestered and propositioned shamelessly, reaching inside the open lobby windows at times.

The hotel staff and police studiously ignored the goings-on.

The first day was spent investigating Camagüey and its history with Roberto and his knowledgeable friend Louis. We started by viewing a model of the city that clearly delineated the city's claim to fame, a maze of streets that was confusing beyond words, a web woven by a drunken spider.

Then we toured the actual area and would have been instantly lost had we not been accompanied by local guides.

There is method behind the madness, however.

The original settlement of Santa Maria del Puerto de Principe was built on the Atlantic coast around 1515 but there was so much trouble from pirates based in the Bahamas that the decision was made in 1528 to move inland to the present site.

In true Spanish style a church and government complex were built and the residences followed.

If you chose a kindergarten class to be a town planning committee the result would be similar to old Camagüey. The streets are all quite short and at every junction there is a choice of three to seven more streets, all joining irregularly.

The widest streets barely allow two cars to pass and the narrowest is a little over two metres. There is only one exit from the original town.

Hordes of pirates had to progress in small numbers and were easily picked off by the residents. It so frustrated Henry Morgan in 1668 that he burned the town to the ground.

In the middle of all this mess is Iglisia del Carmen with a plaza in front that contains life-size metal castings of the people of old Camagüey.

There is a water seller, a couple getting to know each other better, a group of women no doubt gossiping (an empty chair nearby in case you want to join in), and a lone man reading a newspaper.

The man who was the model hovered nearby and for a few coins sat beside his effigy, read a copy of the latest newspaper, and allowed himself to be photographed. I understand that the waterman is usually around for tips too, but it was a quiet day.

Camagüey is famous for its red clay water pots, tinajónes, which appear wherever space allows. Most of them had flat bases set at an angle, convenient to fill and dip from, and holding an average of 50 gallons.

Nearby the Plaza del Carmen was a studio belonging to Doña Martha Jiménez who made the statues.

I bought a few miniature tinajónes and wished I had room for more.

Mike was the hit of the visit. Many people asked us where we were from and when we said the Bahamas they looked at Mike and rolled their eyes. All the Bahamians they had ever encountered were black. Mike assured them he was a 'Loyalist' from Abaco and was a "true-true Bahamian". He became an instant celebrity.

Next day was the wedding. Everything had been arranged for a civil wedding a block away from the hotel. Not to be.

At the last moment a committee meeting of some important Cuban officials was arranged and no weddings could take place there. Roberto and Yanette had to reschedule at the last minute to the Palacio de los Matrimonios, far away.

Mike and I did not quite know what to wear to a Cuban wedding so we took the middle path of slacks and jackets: me with a tie, Mike without. It turned out we were rather overdressed. The groom and bride wore jeans. We did see

evidence of traditional wedding dresses as we watched the machinery of matrimony churning but these dresses were either grandmother's or were hired on an hourly basis.

Roberto and Yanette sat at a desk with the witnesses around and the Cuban marriage office declared them shackled within five minutes. Outside for photos, then off to the party.

Beware of Cuban festive occasions. You are plied with goodies one at a time about half an hour apart like corn fritters, tuna melts on crisp bread, French fries, fried pork skins, plantain chips hot out of the fat, and much more. Plus rum in abundance.

Then you are invited to the table where the main meal begins - pork, cassava, more plantain, more this, more that.

Everything except hot sauce.

By the end of the evening we were sated and were taken back to the hotel in a 1972 Plymouth.

Camagüey is very provincial, the fourth largest city in Cuba.

After Havana it was pleasant to see mummy and daddy walking the streets with their children and popping into an ice cream parlour, elderly men buying sprays of tuberose to take home to their loved ones, mothers tucking long loaves of bread under their arms for their families.

The province of Camagüey has rich soil and claims to feed all of Cuba. I read this on a sign at carnival in Santiago a few days later. There were rice paddies, cornfields and citrus groves in abundance along with cattle and other livestock.

I did not notice sugarcane or tobacco. Road repairs were being undertaken in the city and the rich, black soil removed and piled up made me want to salivate when I think of own poor limestone backyard.

Mike and I found the break in the trip to stop off at Camagüey very rewarding. The rest of our trip to Santiago cost $18 for a five-hour ride in a comfortable large bus. We appreciated our stay in Camagüey but, as they say down south, Santiago es Santiago.