Tuesday 2nd February
After breakfast the next day we had to transfer some money over so that we could get some money out of the ATM, which entailed finding the Telepunto Centre as internet access is denied to the majority of Cuban households. First the user has to queue to purchase a card containing a code that will allow 60 minutes access via one of their computers in any of their offices around the country, costing $6cuc, around £4.20; then you have to queue for a computer to become free! Once you get to the computer the connection is through Dell computers and is not unreasonably slow but not exceptional fast either.
We had already decided to take the ferry across the bay to an old fort mentioned in Paul’s Rough Guide once our task had been achieved. The book also suggested that a boat would leave this side of the bay around about The book warned that the ferry looked more like a ‘tug boat’ but promised a sedate one-hour trip sitting on the roof and enjoying the ride across the bay to Bahia de Cienfuegos. We arrived at the jetty at about 12.30 where there was already quite a queue of people waiting and more people arriving by the second. When they finally let us through we noticed that the vessel was as described but the only ones allowed on the roof wore police or army uniforms, the rest of us were packed onto the deck like sardines!!! I found us a place at the back by the railing so that we could get a good view of where we had been; I assumed it was the back because the end was square! We very soon realised that the other end was square as well – and we were, in fact, at the front and as we left the jetty and started to make our way across it became apparent that the prevailing waves, small though they were, were coming at us head on! As we bounced through these waves a great deal of water splashed up and soaked everyone at the very front, the people who had crowded on the ‘unsafe’ side of the railings. Paul also got drenched with some of the waves literally dripping off his face! Fortunately, the water was not cold and the day was hot and we eventually arrived and disembarked to dry out in the sun.
We noticed a guy on the ferry who had been on our bus from Havana and as we got chatting again he told us that the last ferry back left in one hour, something I didn’t know and am not sure if Paul did, fortuitously, the old fort is only a stones throw from where we disembarked so we headed straight for it, as did the handful other western tourists that were on the ferry for exactly the same reason; the only reason for a tourist to take the ferry really.
The Castillo de Jagua; was originally built by Jose Tantete to protect the harbour from pirates in the first half of the 18th Century. Apparently, the fortress courtyard houses an old prison and a chapel; we passed the canons at the bottom and climbed the half dozen steps to the gate – and painted on the gate were some Spanish words translated in English underneath stating that – the fort was closed - for renovation!
We were allowed just inside the gate and I did take a couple of pictures of the now dry moat and the gatehouse; a bit disappointing, but we weren’t really expecting very much anyway. To fill the time waiting for the return ferry we walked around the back of the fort and found a pathway down to the water; the sun was shining brightly and we enjoyed a good 30 minutes to ourselves at the waters edge before taking a short walk around the edge of the small town, very reminiscent of old spaghetti westerns, then back to the jetty for a 10 min wait for the ride home again, this time on a half empty vessel. You have to laugh – don’t you?
We spent the rest of the day walking three km’s to the end of the peninsular (past the Bay del Sewer), and enjoying a beer on the roof top terrace of the Palacio del Valle as we watched the sun go down.
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