CHAPTER XXX
A PARADISE OF PALM DRIVES
TO those who are fond of motoring in the tropics, the world offers no more delightful field than the Island of Cuba from the end of October until early May, with Havana as a point of departure. Some fourteen hundred kilometers or 850 miles of clean, cream colored macadamized drives stretch out to the east, south and west of Havana, each inviting the tourist or lover of nature to feast his eyes on a fascinating panorama of mountain, hill and dale; of canon, cliff and undulating plain.
Long lines of stately royal palms, of white-trunked Cuban laurel, from whose branches the glossy green leaves never fall, of cocoas, mangoes, almonds, tamarinds, and a score of others, border mile after mile of the national highways, furnishing grateful shade and softened light that otherwise would try the eyes. Every turn and curve of the driveway brings change. There is no sameness of landscape, no monotony of level. Each mile, each moment, presents something new. Expectation is seldom disappointed.
Nothing perhaps is more startlingly novel or strikingly beautiful than when, in early summer, the touring car, rounding a curve, suddenly brings to view a line of flamboyans in full bloom. Lips open in surprise, eyes fasten on what seems a forest of fire. The great banks of brilliant red and golden yellow waving in the breeze need only smoke to proclaim the roadside all ablaze. The camouflage of Nature is perfect and strangers of the tropics will bid the chauffeur pause until they can feast their eyes on this riot of color.
AN AVENUE OF PALMS
The splendid highways which under the Republic have been created in all parts of Cuba have not been left as mere roadways, but have been provided with hundreds of thousands of shade trees, for the comfort of travellers as well as for the scenic beauty which they enhance. There are hundreds of miles of driveways shaded and adorned with stately palms or other trees, like that shown in the illustration.
The most interesting excursions through Cuba radiate from the Capital. One of exceptional charm stretches east through Matanzas to Cardenas, a comparatively modern, well built little city of some thirty thousand souls, resting on the southern shore of Cardenas Bay, just a hundred miles from Havana.
One of the old colonial, solidly-built military roads leaving Havana was constructed along a comparatively straight line for 48 kilometers to the little city of Guines, located in the southeastern center of the province of Havana. The road, bridges, and culverts are built solidly of stone, while giant laurels, almonds and flamboyans on both sides of the way furnish a continuous stretch of shade beneath which the voyager travels from one end of the road to the other. This drive is over a rolling, and in places a decidedly hilly country, which relieves monotony and at the same time adds greatly to the picturesqueness of the highway. Many little villages such as San Francisco, Cotorro, Cautro Caminos, Jamaica, San Jose, Ganuza and Loma de Candela or “Hill of the Candle,” are passed between Havana and Guines. These, to the stranger are always a source of novelty and interest. From the top of the Loma de Candela, a beautiful view of the valley below spreads out towards the south. This is known as the Valley of Guines, a large part of which has the good fortune to have been brought under a rather crude but nevertheless efficient system of irrigation many years ago. The water for this irrigation comes from a large spring that, like many others in the Island, bursts from some big cavern below the surface and forms a river that eventually reaches the sea a little east of the village of Batabano, on the south coast. Some three miles from Guines the river is brought under control by a rather crude dam of cement through which it is distributed by ditches over the lands, referred to usually as the “Vegetable Garden of the Province of Havana.” Here large quantities of tomatoes, egg plants, peppers, squash and Irish potatoes are grown during the late fall and winter months. The produce of this section is shipped to the United States as long as market prices justify, after which ready sale is found in the local markets of the capital.
From Guines another drive extends some 13 kilometers towards the northeast to the town of La Catalina on the way to Matanzas. The distance from Havana to Matanzas is shortened by a connecting link 16 kilometers in length which branches off the Guines highway at Ganuza, and runs due east through La Catalina to the town of Madruga, 63 kilometers from Havana. This section of the road follows a ridge of low hills or mountains. From Madruga the drive turns sharply to the northeast, entering the Province of Matanzas, 25 kilometers east of the border line.