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VÍAZUL DEPARTURES

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TRAIN

The train station (Map; 42-23-11; Calle V Pita) is on the southern side of town. Foreigners must purchase tickets in Convertibles at the special Ladis ticket office ( 7:30am-3pm). The ticket office is marked ‘U/B Ferrocuba Provincial Holguín’ on the corner of Manduley opposite the train station.

Theoretically, there’s one daily morning train to Las Tunas (CUC$4, two hours), a daily afternoon train to Santiago de Cuba (CUC$5, 3½ hours), and a daily 6:15pm train to Havana (CUC$31, 15 hours). This train stops in Camagüey (CUC$9), Ciego de Ávila (CUC$13), Guayos (CUC$17), Santa Clara (CUC$20) and Matanzas (CUC$20). You may have to change trains at the Santiago–Havana mainline junction in Cacocum, 17km south of Holguín.

The only service that operates with any regularity is the train to Havana. The service to Santiago de Cuba is rather irregular; ask before planning your trip around it.

TRUCK

Trucks to points south and west operate from La Molienda Terminal (Map; 46-20-11; Carretera Central No 46), between the bus and train stations. Trucks leave when full for Las Tunas and Bayamo; mornings are best. No trucks go directly to Santiago de Cuba or Camagüey, so you must make the journey in stages.

The Terminal Dagoberto Sanfield Guillén (Map; Av de los Libertadores), opposite Estadio General Calixto García, has at least two daily trucks to Gibara, Banes and Moa. To reach Guardalavaca, take a truck to Rafael Freyre (aka Santa Lucía) and look for something else there.

Getting Around

TO/FROM THE AIRPORT

The public bus to the airport leaves daily around 2pm from the airport bus stop (Map; General Rodríguez No 84) on Parque Martí near the train station. A tourist taxi to the airport costs from CUC$8 to CUC$10. It’s also possible to spend your last night in Bayamo, then catch a taxi (CUC$18 to CUC$20) to Holguín airport.

BICI-TAXI

Holguín’s bici-taxis are ubiquitous. They charge five pesos for a short trip, 10 pesos for a long one.

CAR

You can rent or return a car at these places:

Cubacar Hotel Pernik (Map; 46-81-96; Av Jorge Dimitrov); Aeropuerto Frank País ( 46-84-14); Cafetería Cristal (Map; 46-85-88; cnr Manduley & Martí)

A Servi-Cupet gas station (off Map; Carretera Central; 24hr) is 3km out toward Las Tunas; another station (off Map) is just outside town on the road to Gibara. An Oro Negro gas station (off Map; Carretera Central) is on the southern edge of town. The road to Gibara is north on Av Cajígal; also take this road and fork left after 5km to reach Playa La Herradura.

TAXI

A Cubataxi (Map; 42-32-90; Miró No 133) to Guardalavaca (54km) costs around CUC$35. To Gibara one-way should cost no more than CUC$20.

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GIBARA

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Everyone knows about Hurricane Katrina and the destruction of New Orleans, but less known is Gibara’s equally desperate fight against Hurricane Ike three years later. A Category 4 storm when it smashed into Holguín’s northern coast on September 8, 2008, Ike’s cruel winds ripped through Gibara, damaging 70% of the buildings and almost wiping the city off the map. Almost, but not quite…

Gibara is Holguín’s outlet to the sea, a once-important sugar-export town that was linked to the provincial capital via a railway. With the construction of the Carretera Central in the 1920s, Gibara lost its mercantile importance and after the last train service was axed in 1958, the town fell into a sleepy slumber from which it has yet to awaken.

Columbus first arrived in the area in 1492 and called it Río de Mares (River of Seas) for the Ríos Cacoyugüín and Yabazón that drain into the Bahía de Gibara. The current name comes from jiba, the indigenous word for a bush that still grows along the shore.

Refounded in 1817, Gibara prospered in the 19th century as the sugar industry expanded and the trade rolled in. To protect the settlement from pirates, barracks were built and a 2km wall was constructed around the town in the