This past weekend, I had the chance to go to the Cuban city of Santa Clara, city right in the center of both the North-South and East-West axis of the island. I went with a lot of excitement, because unlike many other study abroad students, I had not travelled much, and this was the only the second city outside of Havana I’d been to.
When I got to Santa Clara, the first thing that struck me was the lack of tourism in the city. I’d only been to Havana and Santiago de Cuba so far, the two biggest cities of Cuba that boast a large tourist population. In contrast, Santa Clara had very few tourists, perhaps because the city didn’t have much to do for foreigners. Sure, there were tourists at Che Guevara’s mausoleum/memorial/museum complex on the west end of the city, but in the city proper, very few foreigners abounded.
Despite being the regional capital of the Villa Clara province and being the 5th largest city in Cuba, Santa Clara felt a lot smaller than Havana or even Santiago de Cuba, the second largest city in Cuba. Unlike Havana, there were no máquinas to be found; rather, the main mode of transportation in the city were horse-drawn carriages. In the 21st century, in a city! People bundled in the cart attached to the horse while they paid the horse driver(?) a few pesos for a speed not too much faster than walking. In accordance with the rustic feeling, the price of living in Santa Clara was also much lower than in Havana. I thought I couldn’t get much cheaper meals than the 50 cent pizzas in Havana, but I soon found that I was wrong when I found quality 10 cent hamburgers in Santa Clara.
Santa Clara contains a population of little more than 200,000, and its size is quite tiny for a city. Only 45 minutes by foot from the city center can get you at the end of the city. Subsequently, there seemed to only be one central area in the city, a large park right in the heart of downtown. The fact that there was only one large plaza, along with its centralized location, however created a lovely park culture after sundown that I had never seen in any other city. The citizens of Santa Clara all huddled around the park for nightlife. On one side of the park, a Cuban Trova band played urging people to dance salsa spontaneously on the street, while the other side featured teenagers and university students listening to reggaeton from their speakers and drinking rum. It was such an open culture! Amidst the open music, people were just hanging out in the open space of the park. I had never seen this open park culture anywhere else in the world.
Unfortunately, however, many people seemed to want to leave Santa Clara, perhaps because of its small size and lack of opportunities. So many houses all over town had signs saying se vende, “for sale,” a sign that’s not often seen in Havana. In Santa Clara, one house next to the other was for sale, at a rate such that some houses put up signs saying that they were not selling their house and asking people not to ask them if they were. I was flabbergasted. Why were so many people so intent on selling their houses? Because they were in dire need for money? To move to Havana for better economic opportunity?
The house sales were definitely a sharp contrast to the house I was staying while I was in Santa Clara. The easiest housing for travelers in Cuba is renting a casa particular, an Airbnb-type housing situation where you pay usually about $10-15 per night for a house with breakfast. I was speaking with the host of my house, José, who summarily told me that he had another house for rent as well as his own house in addition to the one I was staying at. He has no other job than renting out apartments, and he spends his vacations in Miami or Mexico for several months at a time. What dichotomy he was from the rest of Santa Clara! While people were eager to sell their houses all around town, José was amassing them. I felt bad. Just to fulfill my selfish travel desires, I was widening the gap between the townspeople and the tourist-catering kingdom.
notclaremont 