Next to the Viñales valley, the Sierra Maestra was the most beautiful landscape we saw in Cuba. It is known from the time before the revolution, when Fidel Castro and his people hid in the jungle and kept escaping the government troops. Our plan: to hike from Santo Domingo to Fidel’s hideout the next day.
On the way to Santo Domingo
The journey through the hilly jungle landscape was an experience in itself, and we reached Santo Domingo right on time for sunset. Shortly before, an unusual sight: a mountain goat giving birth to her young in the middle of the main road. The Sierra Maestra rises steeply from the sea in south-eastern Cuba; its highest peak, Pico Turquino, is at 1,974 metres also the highest mountain in the country. After Fidel Castro returned from Mexico in 1956, the range became the revolutionaries’ hideout.
Two pedestrians and palms at the bend – on the way to Santo Domingo.A banana field with a single tall palm above it.An open plain and a picket fence in front of a house.A breeze-block house behind the picket fence.A wide field with nothing but palms on the horizon.Palms in the meadow and a figure in the tree-lined avenue.A narrow concrete bridge in the dense forest.A child with a bicycle and a rider in front of the sugar cane.A brown horse in harness in front of its cart.Palms on the sandy beach and a palm-leaf parasol by the sea.A peeling mural: a swimmer and two yellow boats.Clouds above the sea, a small white sail on the horizon.A wooden house beneath a broad tree among banana plants.A green truck and a wooden railway crossing sign by the road.A colourful harvester and a rusty PARE sign.Palms and a house with a corrugated roof by the red track.A sandy track between houses and a wide green pasture.A turquoise cart with wooden wheels in the stubble field.A dark plain and a pale cow in the pasture.Two people on the potholed road, mountains on the horizon.Potholes between bushes – the road into the Sierra Maestra.An off-road vehicle on the track, the mountains of the Sierra Maestra behind.A palm-thatched hut beneath trees and palms.A cow and a person in the pasture, a river in the forest beside them.Unidos, Vigilantes y Combativos – a yellow sign in the dense green.Bends and a bridge with crash barriers in the forest.A stony river in front of a slope full of palms.A palm, a house and a person on the road into the highlands.A hut in a clearing before wooded hills.Palms in the dense mountain forest – this is where Fidel and his men once hid.The road on the wooded slope vanishes into the mist.Dark ridges above a band of cloud.A bridge with a warning sign before cloud-wrapped mountains.Mist above the steep wooded slope.Right in the middle of the road: a goat with her newborn kid.A curving bridge in front of the steep palm-covered slope.Camera raised on the hilltop, the evening sun above the Sierra Maestra.Evening light and mist above the ridge – arriving in Santo Domingo just in time for sunset.Evening sky above mountain silhouettes, mist lying in the valley.
