Page 11 - 2011 AMA Winter

What does Cuba call to mind? Ché, Fidel and the revolution, the Bay of Pigs, missiles, outrageous, mouth watering cigars, music, rum cocktails and dancing, 1950s American gas-guzzling automobiles, magnificent architecture - Spanish colonial to Art Deco, Caribbean beaches and Guantanamo Bay? Well Cuba has all these things in big buckets and is a unique place to visit. Life is pre- served at some point (depending where you are) between the age of the buccaneers, through sugar to JFK, but, apart from some nice new Chinese coaches, it doesn’t go much later. This is partly because, despite the proximity of Florida, it remains a daft but handy US Federal offence for Americans, or American business, to go to the island.
Yeah yeah, but this is the AMA magazine, I know. Well, in the western part of the island, near Viñales, there are some splendid great limestone haystacks, known as mogo- tes. This was a surprise holiday (ahem, 50th birthday – yes I still have a Whillan’s nutcracker), so I didn’t know about all this, in fact I had no idea until I was standing at Gatwick looking at a departures board that I was going to Cuba at all. But we bumped into an American couple (who had sneaked in) who wanted to share a lift from the airport to Havana and were there for the rock. Long story short, a couple of days later I was borrowing a harness from Oscar Rodríguez, the climbing king of Viñales and therefore of Cuba, who also runs a B&B, or casa, where the few, hairy, thin young climb- ing types from all over the world hang out.
Half an hour’s walk in the glorious sunshine and a cosmopolitan crew of seven - my wife and I, an American, a Dutchman, a 6 month old baby, and a German and a Sri Lankan
on leave from the humanitarian operation in neighbouring Haiti - were at the rock. Climbing is not ‘sanctioned’ in Cuba, so the fact that we were in the middle of a Cuban Army patrol competition added an enter- taining but friendly enough dimension.
What about the climbing then? Well the easiest stuff was in the mid 4s, (plenty hard enough to me) but almost all the routes were over 5, and longish, single-pitch-plus. The website says: ‘overhanging limestone faces on 1,000-foot freestanding crags rise above traditional thatch-roofed Cuban houses, red-soiled farms, and verdant palms and pines. The climbing is superla- tive, cranking jugs and pockets in chiseled karst limestone on improbable lines through stunning overhangs of stalactites and tufa columns’. Yep. Quite a few good bolts too. I only climbed for a day (see Paragraph One for other, pressing distractions that might fill a mere week) but our new friends were back for several more days. I think the Cuban Army may have learnt something from our end of the Cold War, for as I was grunting up something that most readers would be able to do in roller skates, across the val- ley between me and an Army rest stop on the other side wafted the clear sound of a movie sound-track reminiscent of late-night cookhouse entertainment on a long exer- cise circa 1982. Altogether, a touch surreal.
Getting a formal expedition to Cuba might be a bit edgy, worth a go, but as a private trip it’s brilliant. There is lots of info at www. cubaclimbing.com and we found the Lonely Planet guide pretty good too. Hurry before Mackydee’s mucks it all up – Virgin flies direct from Gatwick.
Walking in
The Spirit of Cuba
Che in Havana
ARMY MOUNTAINEER 9