2024-03-26: Cienfuegos
Author: David
On Tuesday morning, we departed from Viñales for Cienfuegos. This involved riding a colectivo back to the outskirts of Havana, where we pulled into a random parking lot on the side of the highway full of other colectivos, whereupon after maybe 15 minutes, we were handed off to another car that was to take us the rest of the way to Cienfuegos. It was pretty interesting to see the informal system of bartering that all the different drivers used to trade passengers who were headed in the appropriate direction. The rest of the drive was pretty uneventful overall; the two mildly interesting things that happened were driving past a horrifyingly massive landfill that seemed to stretch for miles as far as the eye could see, and stopping at a roadside snack stand for a simple yet tasty pan con lechón sandwich.
We arrived at our casa particular in Cienfuegos at around 2PM. This was the nicest one we had stayed in yet, and the host also seemed the most savvy about travelers, welcoming us in with some juice and a small trinket, taking some time to tell us what was a reasonable way to spend a day in Cienfuegos, and even proactively helping us book a colectivo with sightseeing stops the next day to Trinidad, which we didn't even know was possible and were pretty happy about.
Walking around, it was immediately pretty apparent that Cienfuegos was in much better shape than Havana. All the buildings were generally in pretty okay condition, and all the streets were clean. The whole city felt bright and airy. Over the rest of the day, we walked to the Parque José Martí, hopped on an auto rickshaw all the way down to Punta Gorda, and walked all the way back along the waterfront of the Malecón, making numerous leisurely stops along the way for food and drink and shopping and sightseeing.
Cienfuegos is chock-full of grand old palaces and mansions, and we were able to step into a number of them, which were being kept in pristine condition and still in active use. For example, the Teatro Tomás Terry was setting up for a show that night, the Palacio Ferrer was a really nice historical museum, and the stunning Palacio de Valle was now a hotel and restaurant with a stunning rooftop bar and terrace. We really enjoyed seeing and admiring the fine craftsmanship and attention to detail that permeated them all.
For dinner, we went to 2212, which our host had recommended to us. This ended up being the best meal we'd had in Cuba so far: even though the dishes were relatively modest as they had been on the entire trip, all of it was actually prepared very well. As Rob had been saying for a week straight now, even the simplest food can be super tasty if it's just cooked well, and it had been puzzling as to why so much of the cooking we'd encountered had been so lackluster, so it was really nice to finally have a meal where everything was cooked right. We ordered tostones rellenos with shrimp and frituras de malanga to start, and split some masas de cerdo and fajitas de pollo for the main courses, and all of it was flavorful and delicious.
We really only had half a day to explore Cienfuegos, but it was enough to get a good sense of what the city was all about. Compared to Havana, it was a lot less aggressively touristy, and felt a lot less chaotic and frenzied. I thought it was cool that the city seems to be putting a lot of effort into keeping its historic buildings and streets in good condition, and overall, the entire city felt really nice to just walk around and soak in the ambience. All told, I left Cienfuegos with an extremely positive impression.
