"With 10 people in a small army jeep towards Yumiri" Top 5 Page for this destination Baracoa Travelogue by Alain_Smeets

Baracoa: hike in Yumuri

Everybody knows already what the program is for day 18 of our trip. It's already 14 May and we are going to take the bus to Yumiri to do a nature walk. But first there is again an extended breakfast for 3 persons. Needless to say that Karl is missing again, to tired to get out of his bed. The others of our group are coming to Lucy en from here we go to the bus station. A lot of people are waiting on the busses, but these ones aren't going to Yumiri. The bus at the back end of the parking is going there and it costs only a few pesos. We get on the bus and sit down and wait. But there is no movement in the bus, so we keep on waiting. There are coming more people who are getting on the bus, most of them put their suitcase on the seat and go back outside and stand there waiting. The temperature in the bus is rather high; this because the sun is burning and although the windows of the bus are open, there is no wind to cool us down. We ask when the bus should leave and one of the passengers says to us 13h00. It's now only 10h30 and we don't see us sitting so long in this parked bus. When we get our belongings and leave the bus and then one of the people says that the bus is going to leave in a half hour. But the problem is that there are not a lot of busses going back from Yumiri, so we have to rethink our options. But a solution is at hand; they point us to a person in a jeep. After a short negotiation he agrees to bring us to and back from Yumiri for 20 dollar for 7 persons. We agree, because we didn't have a ride in a jeep yet, but how the hell do we have to fit with 7 persons in this small jeep. There are 3 benches in the jeep, 2 at the sides and one in the middle against the driver. It's only a small army jeep. John is sitting in front next to the driver and a fellow passenger and his son. On the benches inside, Marinette, Wim, Jean and I are sitting down; our feet next to some materials cosy together. Marijke and Nele can sit in what we call the balcony. They have off course the best places in the house. The balcony is located outside the jeep and the sail. Every Cuban that we pass or that is waiting next to the road is waving to them and they wave back. With 10 people in a small army jeep towards Yumiri, great.

Baracoa: hike in Yumuri

It's an adventure so close to each other in this Jeep. Between Jean and Marinette's feet there is a heavy battery. We also get to see the Cuban way of driving. The distance between Baracoa and Yumiri is about 30 kilometres and it took us about one hour to get there. The road is hilly and each time that we go downhill, the driver shuts down the engine to save fuel. He goes then freewheeling to the bottom and if he has enough speed to reach the next hilltop he keeps the engine off. If he almost looses his speed, he turns the engine on again to the hilltop and shuts if off again. It's a nice trip and I have to stick my head outside the sail next to Marijke to see something off the landscape or I look try the front window, but then you see everything flashing by at 30 km an hour.

As we arrive in Yumiri, we get a lot of people walking behind the jeep. Through the reports of the previous groups, we already knew this. The driver brings us to a bridge and we get out and immediately their are about 30 people around us. One person takes the word and proposes some options to do for a walk. We decide to go for a walk across the forest with some explanation about the local fruits. John is in the mean time getting acquainted with the locals. Why him, he does this always. But at the other hand is speaking Spanish. And also because he likes to talk and can't say NO. The locals try to sell us some nice necklaces made with beautiful coloured snail houses. But Marijke had read in her guidebook that they catch these snails especially for the tourists and that they are endangered now. So we don't buy them.

Baracoa: hike in Yumuri, opening of coconut

The 2 guides are going to take us to the forest. Marinette had asked for only one guide, but they say at least two and we agree. If you don't make any arrangements the whole village comes with you as a guide. Alberto and Eladio take a boat and start to get the water out. We get into the boat, an official boat from Rumbos, the tourist organization and we hear that the price for this boat fare is going to the state and not to the village. So also here they have their long arm into the funds of the tourists. They take us over the water to an island in the river. This is the start of our voyage. We walk across this with stone covered island and we notice that 3 of the local girls are following us. Soon, John is engaged in talking to them. Needless to say, he's dropping back again. On Marinette instructions Eladio goes to talk to the 3 girls and she says to John that we don't going to wait always on him. The trip goes now into the bushes and they show us some tobacco plants. But now, we walk to the opposite side and they show us an abandoned cave. Until a few years ago, there was an Indian living here, he' was married to a white woman. He used to live here in the same way his ancestors lived. But the government didn't like that the tourist where taking pictures of him and he was relocated to Santiago. Alberto and Eladio show us how you can roast a pig. There is a long stick standing against the cave wall and they show us how they turn an imaginary pig slowly above an imaginary coal fire.

Baracoa: hike in Yumuri, drinking coconut water

Now we walk to the other side of the steam, we take our shoes of to walk through this shallow smoothly streaming river. The water level comes to our ankles, but those small stones beneath our unprotected bear foot! We put our shoes back on and go further with our trip. The first fruits that we see are the green cacao fruit. These are only ripe when they are brown red. They have a special smell and are completely white inside.

We continue through the forest over a small path, just wide enough to pass all the overhanging plants. We are walking now and then next to a deeper valley. Suddenly I don't see one of the guides anymore, but the others point me to a figure sitting in a tree. He's collecting pommo-rosso's. He shakes them out of the branches and some of them he takes from the tree. These pommo-rosso's are as we learned in Trinidad: Cuban apples. They still have that strange taste, but the still our hunger and thirst. The next fruit they collect for us is a kind of a mango. This one has an orange colour. Eladio gets his knife and peels the skin off and cuts it then in small pieces. But as I taste them, I find them horrible, the others agree. They are to dry. The second one tastes a bit better, but not what one would expect from fresh fruit. After a while, they find another mango and this one is juicy and tastes delicious. In no time she's eaten.

Baracoa: hike in Yumuri, the coconuts

Then the guides stop and point in the direction of a palm tree. Alberto climbs as a trained monkey to the top and in no time, he gets for everybody a coconut out of the tree. He just throws then down and we start collecting them. Now the work starts for Eladio. He cuts a piece of the coconut and we see the hollow inside of the coconut. It's filled with coconut water; it's not the same taste as water out of o bottle or tap. It has not a great taste and it's also not easily drinking from a coconut. Very often the water is dripping over our chin. As we finished the water, they cut the coconut open. From the bark they make a spoon that we can use to eat the fruit of the coconut. It tastes good and wet. After this delicious "snack" we walk further and get again to the river that curls through the valley. We rest here a bit and relax en practice the art of throwing a rock into the river. You know that game off course; Eladio and Alberto are very good at it. After this short break we take our belongings and walk back over the same track.

Again we have to take our shoes off to cross the river and again we feel those little rocks beneath the sole of our feet. We stop again at a deep place in the river and I decide to go for a swim. The water is more refreshing than on the other trips in Cuba and still it feels warmish.

Baracoa: hike in Yumuri, a "lobster" for us

It's natural I guess with a constant temperature of more then 30 degrees day in day out. Also Eladio and Alberto and later John are joining me in this warmish wet water. (lol) The first two are giving a demonstration of diving from a high rock. When we are dry again, we walk back to our starting point. Alberto tells about a cousin of him, who fled to Haiti and from there to Puerto Rico. He's glad that his nephew made it.

Yumiri has a special meaning: in the time of the Spaniards, the original inhabitants the Indians were their slaves. A lot of them didn't like this way of life, which was totally different from their normal free life. They took their own life by throwing themselves from the rocks into the dept of the valley with the yell: Yumiri on their lips. This means something like I die or I'm free. I didn't find this translation in any dictionary. But this yell has resonance in this valley, because will we are waiting the guides are yelling towards the villages to bring the boat. Even a handclap is echoed and enhanced dozens of times by the valley walls. It's a strange sound if you hear the dull sound echoing through the chasm.

Baracoa: hike in Yumuri, cleaning of the pineapple

At the end Eladio swims back to inform the owner of the boat, so that you can pick us up. When we arrive back in the village they ask again if we don't stay for dinner. They propose that we sit on the black sand of the beach to eat. After a short consult we decide to stay, on the condition that not the whole village is watching is eating on the beach. They say that this is OK, because it's not nice to eat when people are sitting and watch you. They show us the fish and the "lobster" that you caught today. This is going to be our evening meal. First we buy an pineapple from some ones yard, that Eladio then prepares for us. Delicious and juicy, just heaven. Now we just have to wait until they bring our meal. We spend the time with walking bear footed into the water or just hanging around on the beach.

Then they bring the meal: 2 fish and the "lobster" added with papa fritas and Christianos and Morros (rice and beans). We eat our dinner on the beach and it tastes delicious and everybody is full. While we are eating, one of the locals is waving a banana-leaf to keep the flies of your food. After the meal, our chauffeur takes us back to the city; there is also a woman of the village who joins us. She's picking up some clothes that we still have with us. Again he's playing that game with his engine on the hilly roads, switching it off when we go downhill. But this time we have some nuisance with the exhaust, especially the two people sitting outside. But also the rest of us have often a nose full of the gasses from the exhaust. Each time there is an outburst of the exhaust, we have to laugh and smell the odour. After an hours drive we arrive back in Baracoa and we ask our driver if he can pick us up tomorrow to bring us to El Junci. He agrees and we say goodbye to him.