Cienfuegos

The second stop on our Cuban tour was to be a Southern port named Cienfuegos , which means "A Hundred Fires". The nickname of the city is "The Pearl Of The South", and like Santiago, is one of the busiest ports on the Cuba -South American trade routes. The city itself is much smaller than Havana and has about One hundred and Fifty thousand people. Our guides told us that it is only a three hour trip from Havana to Cienfuegos by bus or car, but it took our ship over a days sailing to reach the southern port because we had to sail west and round the western tip of Cuba and then sail East about 250 miles. The Island of Cuba is around 700 miles long and is 100 or so miles wide. An interesting fact is that Cienfuegos is primarily agricultural and raises sugar cane and tobacco in very fertile soil. Much of the Sugar cane eventually turns into Cuban Rum distilled in the original Bacardi rum distilleries that were socialized by Castro after the Revolution.During the height of colonialism in Cuba there were over 700000 slaves working the huge plantations for the Spaniards. That is more slaves than the United States had previous to the Emancipation Proclamation. The city of Cienfuegos was very much less cosmopolitan than Havana, yet still had very beautiful colonial architecture of Spanish and French influence. It was attacked briefly during the Revolution because there was a Pro-Castro movement against Batista. The morning we were there was very hot with a cloudless blue sky.After walking around the town square the tour guides took us to the town's Opera House for a concert of the town singers, which are funded by the Socialist Government, as are the other artists of Cuba. We were led into the Four story theater and found the performance was already started. the only lighting in the large open theater was spotlights on the stage , and the rest of the theater was so dark you could almost feel it. Along with the blackness was a pervasive heat of at least 120 degrees. our guide told us to go up steps invisible in darkness and find seats we could not see. We finally stumbled up a flight of unlit stairs and felt for empty seats.  After falling all over each other and finding the seats we sat in tropical darkness and listened to a talented group of singers sing in Spanish of traditional and contemporary Cuban songs which would have been very entertaining had we not been in a dark sauna sweating our lives away. They sang"Guatanamara", which was very pretty, yet we finally found our way downstairs thanks to Sandy having a small LED light in her purse. It reminds me of pretty women singing in the pits of Hell to captured souls.We stumbled outside to the bright tropical sunlight ,and  gratefully entered our air conditioned Chinese Bus like the spoiled, pampered,complaining asses that we are. We then drove around the city and went down to their beach and waterfront area where the guide told us the city inhabitants go in the evenings to cool off , drink, and socialize. There was a beautiful hotel there that is very expensive overlooking the water.There were also a couple of beautiful turn of the 19th century mansions that were taken by Castro in  the revolution when their wealthy owners fled to Miami.After a half day tour of the city our bus took us back to the port where we filed past the Custom men and women and boarded our home away from home to start our next leg of the journey to Santiago. A very interesting ritual at sea is the boarding of Cuban pilots who must be aboard your ship as it enters the channels into the ports and who must take you out of the harbor until you are safely on the open seas. There is an international law that all ships entering a harbor of any nation in the world must have a licensed pilot, to guide the ship in and out of the country. This applies to military ships as well as commercial ones and the law is very strictly enforced and the pilot commands the entire ship as long as he or she is on the bridge. That's why there are very few ship incidents while in the channels entering the world's busy harbors.Once past the channel an official orange runabout reading"PILOT"picks him up and goes back to the harbor. The open sea is gorgeous with deep blue waters full of silver flying fish
 gliding above the waves.The setting sun at sea is indescribably beautiful with golds and reds above the blue.Words cannot describe,nor can cameras capture the beauty. I thought that Santiago cannot top what we have seen so far, but I was wrong.