Cuba - Lonely Planet [334]
To get to the key, take the regular (leaving every 30 minutes or so) ferry from Punta Gorda just below El Morro castle.
Jardín de los Helechos
Two kilometers from downtown Santiago de Cuba on the road to El Caney, the peaceful Jardín de los Helechos (Map; 64-83-35; Carretera de El Caney No 129; admission CUC$1; 9am-5pm Mon-Fri) is a lush haven of 350 types of ferns and 90 types of orchids that started life in 1976 as the private collection of Santiagüero Manuel Caluff. In 1984 Caluff donated his collection of 1000-plus plants to the Academia de Ciencias de Cuba (Cuban Academy of Science), which continues to keep the 3000-sq-meter garden in psychedelic bloom (the best time for orchids is November to January). The center of the garden has an inviting dense copse-cum-sanctuary dotted with benches.
Bus 5 (20 centavos) from Plaza de Marte (Map) in central Santiago passes this way, or you can hire a taxi.
Walking Tour
With a song on your lips and a salsa in your step, a short walking tour of Santiago’s casco histórico is an obligatory rite of passage for first-time visitors keen to uncover the steamy tropical sensations that make this city tick.
Start where the governor did, surveying the sweeping mountains and sparkling bay from the balmy Balcón de Velázquez (1; Click here), site of an ancient fort. Head east next, avoiding the angry roar of the motorbikes that swarm like wasps in the streets around, until you resurface in Parque Céspedes (2; Click here), Santiago’s pulsating heart with its resident jineteras and craggy-faced old men in Panama hats who strum their way through old Carlos Puebla favorites with the exuberance of 18-year-olds. The Casa de Diego Velázquez (3; Click here), with its Moorish fringes and intricate wooden arcades, is believed to be the oldest house still standing in Cuba and it contrasts impressively with the mighty, mustard facade of the Catedral de Nuestra Señora de la Asunción (4; Click here) over to stage right. This building has been ransacked, burned, rocked by earthquakes and rebuilt, remodeled and restored and ransacked again. Statues of Christopher Columbus and Fray Bartolomé de las Casas flank the entrance in ironic juxtaposition. Supposing you’re into religious art, the Museo Arquidiocesano (5; Click here) – say that three times fast! – is somewhere out back.
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WALK FACTS
Start Balcón de Velázquez
Finish Museo Municipal Emilio Bacardí Moreau
Distance 800m
Duration Two hours
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If you’re tired already, you can step out onto the lazy terrace bar at the Hotel Casa Granda (6; Click here) on the southeastern corner of the park, for mojitos or Montecristo cigars, or both. Graham Greene came here in the 1950s on a clandestine mission to interview Fidel Castro. The interview never came off, but he managed instead to smuggle a suitcase of clothes up to the rebels in the mountains.
Follow the music as you exit past the paint-peeled Casa del Estudiante (7; Click here) and onto the infamous Casa de la Trova (8; Click here), where, come 10pm, everything starts to get a shade more caliente (hot) with people winking at you lewdly from the overcrowded upstairs balcony.
Heading upstream on Heredia, you’ll pass street stalls, cigar peddlers, a guy dragging a double bass, and countless motorbikes. That yellowish house on the right with the poem emblazoned on the wall is Casa Natal de José María de Heredia (9; Click here), birthplace of one of Cuba’s greatest poets. You might find a living scribe in Uneac (10; Click here>), the famous national writers’ union a few doors down, or plenty more dead legends offered up in print in funky Librería La Escalera (11; Click here), a bookstore across the street. You can break loose at the corner of Pío Rosado and head to the south in search of the Museo del Ron (12; Click here) until temptation gets the better of you and you drift off in the direction of Tivolí or Santa Barbara or Reparto Sue