Cienfuegos (Part 1) Cuba

Dawn over the anchorage at Cienfuegos

Dawn in the anchorage at Cienfuegos on Thursday 21 February was lovely.  Whereas, when we had arrived the previous afternoon, Punta Gorda had provided little, if any, protection from the brisk south-southeasterly wind, now there was no wind at all and the sea was almost glassy calm.

Ready on the fuel dock but there’s no-one in sight to refuel us!

Club Nautico from the marina

We’d planned such an early start because we had a lot to achieve in the day.  The first priority was to get BV into the mooring in the marina as soon as it was available and before anyone else grabbed it.  We had spoken to the crew of the catamaran in ‘our’ spot the previous evening and knew that they planned to move at about 1000hrs.  We had also confirmed that the fuel dock would [Ed: should!] open at 0830hrs and we wanted to take fuel before moving into the marina – one less thing to do when leaving.  So, given that we expected other people to plan to take fuel early in the day too, we had decided to move onto the fuel dock first thing, so as to be in position as soon as the attendant arrived.  We raise the anchor at 0800hrs and were on the fuel dock at 0815hrs.  By 0900hrs there was still no sign of the refuelling attendant.  Hmmm.  Happily, he turned up soon afterwards, so we took on, and then paid for (in cash) the diesel we needed.  Petrol is not available in the marina but there is a garage nearby and we took the petrol cans there later in the day.  By the time we had finished, our marina space was not quite available (the crew of the catamaran was waiting to take fuel!) and there was a queue of other yachts waiting to refuel too, so we moved away and held off the marina for a while until the catamaran moved out and we could have their old berth.

Getting the space in the marina was fairly important for our plan because we wanted to use it as a base to travel to Havana for a few days.  Officially, you can’t leave your yacht at anchor unattended and we had to get up to Havana because Charlotte was flying home from there.  Now that we had secured our marina berth, we could enjoy all of the tourist stuff without having to worry either about leaving someone behind who would miss out on the Havana experience or about leaving BV unattended at anchor (though several boat crews did just that to no ill-effect).  Our next tasks were to organise transport to Trinidad and Havana, some accommodation in Havana, and a trip to explore Cienfuegos.

Club Nautico

As it happened, the Dutch family on the catamaran whose marina berth we had taken, had just returned from a trip to Havana.  Nicky had chatted to them and been given the details of the accommodation they had used in the city centre as well as the name of a chap who could organise transport to and from Havana and Trinidad.  Darion organises a fleet of collectivo taxis (shared taxis), with competitive pricing compared both to the Viazul bus service and other taxi operations [Ed: and certainly in comparison to the quote I was given by the marina dockmaster which was 40% more for a one-way trip to Havana!].  We determined to find Darion, reported to be found most days outside the Club Nautico, dressed smartly, to see what he could do for us.  Nicky also prepared an email to send to the recommended casa particulares.  However, to send that we had to get to an ETECSA wifi spot and for that we needed to go into town.

Palacia Azul hotel

Whilst we were getting fuel and moving into our berth, Charlotte had gone on ahead into town to provide us with a recce and to spend a bit of time catching up with online happenings in her world.  Meanwhile, we got chatting to Mike and Karen on Chapter 2, a British registered Island Packet, who had taken the other half of our space in the marina.  They had relatively recently completed a 4-5 year circumnavigation and, having spent another couple of seasons in the Caribbean, were now on their way to Annapolis to put Chapter 2 on the market and return to the UK for, presumably, Chapter 3.  Mike and Karen had been at anchor off the marina for 4 days waiting for a marina berth to come available.  Clearly, we had been extremely lucky to arrive when we did!  We shared our ‘top tips’ for places to visit on their way east (having checked into Cuba at Cienfuegos they were planning on heading east to Santiago de Cuba and then up the Bahamas to the USA) and later they passed on similar tips for places they had visited in the Pacific and also shared various electronic navigational data they had accumulated on their circumnavigation.

Seafront view

After lunch Nicky and I took our first trip into town, accompanied by our experienced guide, Charlotte.  It’s a 20min walk into town from the marina, partly along the seafront and partly past the grand remnants from the colonial days, such as the Club Nautico and Palacia Azul, as well as more modern, and ugly, edifices.  This area, and further south along Punta Gorda is known as the Malecón where, traditionally, the locals come out to stroll and chat in the evening.

Pastel coloured, colonnaded buildings at the top end of the Malecón/bottom end of the Paseo del Prado

Closer into town the architecture remained grand but the size of the buildings was a little smaller.  Our guide book explains that Cienfuegos was founded by French emigres in 1819.  In the late 1800s, in a bid to quash slums, promote hygiene and maximise public spaces, the city planners promoted wide paved streets laid out in a regular grid pattern, topped with modern neoclassical buildings, most adorned with porches and columns.  Walking into town in the heat of the early afternoon, the logic of the colonnades along the front of the commercial premises was obvious.  Nicky said that it really it brought to life the remains of the ancient Greek markets and temples we had seen in the eastern Med.

Cienfuegos is a vibrant, bustling city, filled with busy locals and also with tourists, some bussed in, some from the marina and many from the cruise ship dock.  We had a good wander around, looking out for supermarkets, banks, the Cadeca (currency exchange), the fresh food market and generally got a feel for the place.

Parque de José Martí with (top right) the Casa de la Cultura Benjamin Duarte at the western end and (right) the Catedral de la Purísima Concepción at the eastern end

Cienfuegos’ city centre was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2005, both for the beauty of its architecture and the progressiveness of its urban planning, which was revolutionary for 19^th century Latin America.  We very much enjoyed wandering around the city drinking in the cupolas, columned arcades, statues and decorative additions to the stone and plasterwork.

Left: Palacio de Gobierno on the south side of the Parque de José Martí.  Right: Statue of José Martí

However, we also had business to attend to and so spent a while sitting in the main square (Parque de José Martí), where there is a good wifi signal and internet access, checking e-mails and researching our trip to Havana.  Nicky later discovered that the Hotel Jagua (a 1960s carbuncle conveniently close to the marina) has excellent wifi and internet in the main lobby and, provided that you are discrete and reasonably well dressed, they don’t seem to mind if grotty yachties pop in to use it.

Initial recce of Cienfuegos complete, we headed back to BV, once more enjoying our stroll along the Malecón past all the grand buildings.  We hadn’t spotted Darion either on our way in or out of the city (though it was probably a little late for him when we headed back) but decided that we would search him out in the morning when we had done a bit more research and, perhaps, got something back about accommodation in Havana.

Cienfuegos, Cuba