Cuba - Lonely Planet [284]
PUERTO PADRE
Languishing in a half-forgotten corner of Cuba’s least spectacular province, the sizable town of Puerto Padre – or the ‘city of mills’ as it is locally known – is hardly a tourist mecca. But for the die-hard traveler therein lies the attraction. Blessed with a Las Ramblas–style boulevard, a miniature Malecón, and an emaciated statue of Don Quixote standing rather forlornly beneath a small windmill, the town is the sort of place where you stop to ask the way at lunchtime and end up, five hours later, tucking into fresh lobster at a bayside eating joint.
Unshakable Cuba junkies can scratch beneath the surface at the Museo Fernando García Grave de Peralta (Yara No 45 btwn Libertad & Maceo; admission CUC$1), effectively the municipal museum, or search the ruins of the Fuerte de la Loma (Libertad), also known as the Salcedo Castle. There is a Casa de la Cultura for nighttime activities or you can just surf the streets in search of friends, conversation or overnight accommodation in a casa particular.
Puerto Padre is best accessed by truck leaving from Las Tunas train station, or with your own wheels.
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PUNTA COVARRUBIAS
Las Tunas province’s only all-inclusive resort is also one of the island’s most isolated, situated 49 rutted kilometers northwest of Puerto Padre on a spotless sandy beach at Punta Covarrubias. Sitting aside the blue-green Atlantic, the Brisas Covarrubias (Gran Caribe; 51-55-30; s/d from CUC$70/110; ) has 122 comfortable rooms in cabin-blocks (one room is designed for disabled guests). Scuba diving at the coral reef 1.5km off-shore is the highlight. Packages of two dives per day start at CUC$45 at the Marina Covarrubias. There are 12 dive sites here. Almost all guests arrive on all-inclusive tours and are bussed in from Frank País Airport in Holguín, 115km to the southeast. It’s very secluded.
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THE BALCONY OF THE ORIENTE
A long, sinuous island measuring 1250km from Cabo San Antonio to Punta de Maisí, Cuba exhibits an interesting cocktail of regional peculiarities with the two main camps dividing up west–east, or in the local jargon Occidente–Oriente.
Most Cubans will tell you that the Oriente begins in Las Tunas, a city often referred to as El Balcón del Oriente (The Balcony of the Oriente) for its location on the cusp of two colorful regional cultures. Prior to 1976 the area to the east of the settlement was a province in its own right, a large, culturally distinct region that encompassed the five present-day provinces of Guantánamo, Santiago de Cuba, Granma, Holguín and Las Tunas.
Geographically closer to Haiti than Havana, the Oriente has often preferred to look east rather than west in its bid to cement an alternative Cuban identity, absorbing myriad influences from Hispaniola, Jamaica and elsewhere. It is this soul-searching, in part, which accounts for the region’s rich ethnic diversity and long-standing penchant for rebellion.
In the historical context, all of Cuba’s revolutionary movements have been ignited in the Oriente, inspired by such fiery easterners as Carlos Manuel de Céspedes (from Bayamo), Antonio Maceo (from Santiago) and Fidel Castro (from Birán near Holguín). The region has also been a standard-bearer for the lion’s share of Cuba’s musical genres, from son and changüí to nueva trova.
Today, Cuba’s long-standing east-west rivals continue to trade humorous insults on topics such as language (easterners have a distinctive ‘singsong’ accent), baseball (Los Industriales versus Santiago is an event akin to Real Madrid versus Barcelona), history (Santiagueros have never forgiven Habaneros for stealing the mantle of capital city in 1607) and economics (poorer easterners have tended to migrate west for work). While high-and-mighty Habaneros will tell you that the rest of Cuba is just a ‘green field’ and jokingly refer to people from Santiago as Palestinos, the proud citizens of the Oriente like to think of themselves as feisty historical liberators and jealous guardians of Cuba’s world-famous musical heritage.