Walking Cuba: El Camino del Cimarron

Day 3: Vueltas-Remedios….continued

Following the tracks, we reach a crossroad. A left takes us to Palenque, the cimarron hideout of days gone by. To the right, at about five hundred meters, runs the ubiquitous Circuito Norte. Straight ahead, along the tracks, is Remedios and its train station.

“Here we have to go right. Take the road in. Trains might be coming and we don’t want to be the group that had the Caminante run over by a train. The Remedios Cultura folks should be on the road up ahead. They’re waiting on the boundary between the two municipios. Straight ahead a couple of kilometers is Remedios. Straight out of the railroad station is the center of town. Easy walk.”

The students want to visit Palenque.

“We won’t see you again,” says one girl as she gives me the obligatory. We take pictures, exchanged e-mails and say our goodbyes. The girls jump in the middle of the road and exuberantly wave down a truck headed that way.

“Can you give us a ride?”

All the students hop on the back, yelling to El Quimico, “we’ll meet you at the bus stop.”

He and I keep walking to the Circuito Norte.

“They’re good kids,” he says. “I can depend on them. That’s one thing that is still strong in our…