Walking Cuba: El Camino del Cimarron

Day 5 (cont.): The Ariosa — Where Esteban Met Ana

The simple truth is that I never needed anything in the woods. The only thing I couldn’t have was sex. Since there were no women, I had to get by with my desire bottled up. I couldn’t even step up to a mare (yegua), because they neighed like the dickens. And when the guajiros heard the clamor they would come right away, and nobody was going to put cuffs on me just for a mare.

— Esteban Montejo

It was a hot day. Really hot. We sat in the warm shade of the gazebo waiting to eat lunch at the Adela sugarmill. The smokestack of the mill pointed at the sky right in front of us. The “master’s” house, the Casa Mayoral surviving from the days of slavery stood across a green lawn of indestructible grass.

The gazebo offers some shade but the angle of the sun ignored the roof.

“Damn, it’s hot,” says Joel.

“It’s 11 o’clock,” I say. “We’re still in the first act.”

After lunch, Robert, the cameraman who I met a few days before, walks with us to Zulueta. He interviews me on the way and gets some footage of the trail.