Cuba - Lonely Planet [139]
Hotel Las Yagrumas (Islazul; 38-44-60/-61/-62; s/d CUC$30/40; ) Good enough to be listed as a town highlight, Las Yagrumas is situated 3km north of San Antonio de los Baños, overlooking the picturesque, but polluted Río Ariguanabo. With its 120 rooms with balcony and terrace (some of which face the river) it is generally considered to be one of Islazul’s better hotels and is, as a consequence, rather popular with peso-paying Cubans. Buffet meals are surprisingly good and table tennis, a gigantic pool and hilarious karaoke add to a pleasant family atmosphere.
La Quintica ( Tue-Sun) A local peso restaurant, situated just past the baseball stadium alongside the river 2km north of town. There’s live music Friday and Saturday nights (closed Monday).
Entertainment
Taberna del Tío Cabrera (Calle 56 No 3910 btwn Calles 39 & 41; 2-5pm Mon-Fri, 2pm-1am Sat & Sun) This is an attractive garden nightclub that puts on the odd humor show (organized in conjunction with the museum). The clientele is an entertaining mix of townies, folk from the surrounding villages and students from the film school.
Getting There & Away
Hard to get to without a car, San Antonio is supposedly connected to Havana’s Estación 19 de Noviembre (four trains a day), but check well ahead. Otherwise a taxi should cost you 50 centavos a kilometer.
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BEJUCAL
pop 25,425
Though hardly a tourist town in the Varadero sense; tiny Bejucal is famous for two reasons.
Firstly,, there’s the jubilant Charangas de Bejucal, a cacophonous cross between Santiago’s Carnaval and Remedios’ Parrandas that takes place every December 24. As in the Parrandas, the town splits into two groups, La Ceiba de Plata (the Silver Ceiba) and La Espina de Oro (the Golden Thorn), who hit the streets laughing, dancing and singing among outrageously large, dazzling floats and the famous Bejucal tambores (drums). The Charangas date back to the early 1800s when the parading groups were split between creoles and black slaves. The racial distinctions no longer exist.
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ASK A LOCAL
Cuba was the sixth country in the world to get a train system and the first in Latin America. Its rail network even preceded that of colonizing power, Spain. It remains the only country in the Caribbean with a fully functioning passenger train system.
Jorge, Havana
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Bejucal’s second claim to fame is its role in the development of the Cuban railway system. Latin America’s first ever railway line opened on November 19, 1837, running between Havana and Bejucal. The original station is still here, although it underwent extensive renovation in 1882. The upper floor now serves as a Railroad Museum (Calle 7 & Línea de Ferrocarril; 8am-4pm Mon-Fri, 8am-noon Sat) displaying the history of railways in Cuba.
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ARTEMISA
pop 60,477
Known locally as the Villa Roja (Red Town) or the Jardín de Cuba (Garden of Cuba), Artemisa, situated 60km southwest of Havana on the Carretera Central, is famous for the fertility of its soil that produces a rich annual harvest of sugarcane, tobacco and bananas. In days of yore the town grew wealthy on the back of the 19th-century sugar boom and until the 1970s was part of Pinar del Río province. If you’re passing, Artemisa contains two national monuments (listed below) along with a Museo Municipal (Martí No 2307; admission CUC$1) and a restored section of the Trocha Mariel-Majana, a defensive wall erected by the Spanish during the Wars of Independence.
Revolution buffs may want to doff a cap to the Mausoleo a los Mártires de Artemisa (Av 28 de Enero; admission CUC$1; 9am-6pm Tue-Sun). Of the 119 revolutionaries who accompanied Fidel Castro in the 1953 assault on the Moncada Barracks, 28 were from Artemisa or this region. Fourteen of the men presently buried below the cube-shaped bronze mausoleum died in the actual assault or were killed soon after by Batista’s troops. The other Moncada veterans buried here died later in the Sierra Maestra. There’s a small adjacent