Cuba - Lonely Planet [138]
These days Cuba produces a more modest 2.5 million tonnes of sugar a year, and skeletal factories such as Camilo Cienfuegos stand like soot-stained reminders of another era.
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Getting There & Away
The ferry from Surgidero de Batabanó to Isla de la Juventud is supposed to leave daily at noon with an additional sailing at 3:30pm on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday (CUC$55, two hours). It is advisable to buy your bus-boat combo ticket in Havana from the office at the main Terminal de Ómnibus Click here rather than turning up and doing it here. More often than not convertible tickets are sold out to bus passengers.
There’s a Servi-Cupet gas station (Calle 64 No 7110 btwn Calles 71 & 73) in the center of Batabanó town. The next Servi-Cupet station to the east is in Güines.
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SAN ANTONIO DE LOS BAÑOS
pop 46,300
Full of surprises, San Antonio de los Baños, 35km southwest of central Havana, is Cuba on the flip side, a hard-working municipal town where the local college churns out wannabe cinematographers and the museums are more about laughs than crafts.
Founded in 1986 with the help of Nobel Prize–winning Columbian novelist, Gabriel García Márquez, San Antonio’s Escuela Internacional de Cine y TV invites film students from around the world to partake in its excellent on-site facilities, including an Olympic-sized swimming pool for practicing underwater shooting techniques. Meanwhile, in the center of town, a unique humor museum makes a ha-ha-happy break from the usual stuffed animal/revolutionary artifact/antique furniture triumvirate.
San Antonio is made all the more amenable by the inclusion of an attractive riverside hotel, Las Yagrumas, which offers a welcome escape from Havana’s frenetic pace. The town is also the birthplace of nueva trova music giant, Silvio Rodríguez, who was born here in 1946. Rodríguez later went on to write the musical soundtrack to the Cuban Revolution almost single-handed. His best-known songs include ‘Ojalá,’ ‘La Maza’ and ‘El Necio.’
Sights & Activities
San Antonio de los Baños has several attractive squares; check out the one with the old church at the corner of Calles 66 and 41. Nearby, the Museo Municipal (Calle 66 No 4113 btwn Calles 41 & 43; admission CUC$1; 10am-6pm Tue-Sat, 9am-noon Sun) focuses on art with important works by local born painter Eduardo Abela (1899–1965), a modernist who studied in Paris and rediscovered his homeland with nostalgia from his self-imposed exile.
More local work is displayed at the Galería Provincial Eduardo Abela (Calle 58 No 3708 btwn Calles 37 & 39; admission free; 1-5pm Mon-Fri) nearby.
Unique in Cuba is the side-splitting selection of cartoons, caricatures and other entertaining ephemera at the Museo del Humor (cnr Calle 60 & Av 45; admission CUC$2; 10am-6pm Tue-Sat, 9am-1pm Sun). Among the drawings exhibited in this neoclassical colonial house are saucy cartoons, satirical scribblings and the first known Cuban caricature dating from 1848. Look out for the work of Cuba’s foremost caricaturist, Carlos Julio Villar Alemán, a member of Uneac and a one-time judge at the International Humor Festival still held here every April (entries remain on display for several weeks during this period).
A footbridge across the river next to La Quintica restaurant leads to a couple of hiking trails. Enjoy a drink in the bar, before sallying forth on a DIY adventure around the leafy banks.
Sleeping & Eating
The main shopping strip is Av 41, and there are numerous places to snack on peso treats along this street. You can change your money