Cuba: Boca de Canasi and the Eclipse
Text and Photos by Nester Nuñez (Joven Cuba)
HAVANA TIMES – Going to Boca de Canasí isn’t like entering the dark and dangerous mouth of the wolf. Life is peaceful in that fishing community, located in the municipality of Santa Cruz del Norte, Mayabeque, about 30 kilometers from the city of Matanzas. It’s even luminous for these times: the village is connected to the hotel circuit of Jibacoa and generally always has electricity.
The exception, of course, is when there’s a complete blackout of the national electric power system, like the one on Friday, March 14. On days like that, the already wide gaps between houses seem even wider. The usual calm turns into concern, a “what could have happened,” wondering how long it will take before power is restored—until, without agreeing on it, neighbors retreat indoors to cook whatever they have and weather the outage with the best attitude possible. Without TVs or speakers on, the silence expands so much that from 50 meters away you can hear a woodpecker. The strange thing is, it’s not pecking wood, but the metal of a streetlamp—tatatacataca—as if annoyed and protesting.
But for many who visit Boca de Canasí, the goal is precisely to escape the frustrations of daily life back home. They come seeking the sea, the sun, and the natural beauty this place offers. Long before you arrive, you can already smell the salt concentrated in the mangroves, and your eyes fill with the sight of those rocky hills split down the middle by the ancient persistence of the river.
If you’re lucky, one or two paragliders will amplify the sense of adventure, even if you’re not the one flying. You watch their stunts, the swaying that depends on warm air currents, and at some point, you wonder whether you’d have the courage to do it yourself. Would you regret it when it’s time to run and jump off the hilltop? How loud and sharp would your beginner scream be? If, in your imagination, you managed to leap into the void, you’d also wonder what it would be like to see your little piece of life and world from that height. Would you feel grand or insignificant?
Then you’d realize your feet are still on the ground and end up wondering how much, in monetary terms, not risk, it would cost. Who even owns a paraglider nowadays, plus the fuel and transport and everything else? Or maybe they’re foreign tourists who paid in dollars, while you get paid in barely enough Cuban pesos. Then you remember you came to get away from the tatatacataca protest of city life. You lift your gaze back toward the horizon, your own, which doesn’t mean resignation or envy… or maybe it does. And you see that little fishing boat returning safely to its dock.
Depending on the type of tourism you’re doing, you might find out that a pound of albacore sells directly for 500 pesos, and swordfish goes for 600. The lucky fishermen went out at 5 a.m. and were back by 11. They called the owner of a restaurant in Havana, who said he’d come himself to pick up the two big catches. The barracuda will be eaten by the man who caught it. He really likes the meat, especially grilled. There’s no real way to know if it’s ciguatera-tainted, he says. The thing about testing it on ants to see if they eat it is just a myth, in his opinion. While I imagine him totally bald, even his eyebrows hairless, I tell him I know a state-run restaurant called Albacora, but it’s been ages since even a sardine scale showed up there.
Speaking of which, I ask for a little bait to fish with a handline once I reach the campsite, and he gives me the freshly cut tail of the barracuda, so big it nearly ends up flavoring a soup, but that’s still hours away. First, we need to find Ariel to help us carry the backpacks to the other side of the river.
Inside the backpacks there’s rice, oil, spaghetti, coffee, sugar… Pots, bowls and utensils, water bottles… Fishing gear, clothes, tents, rechargeable flashlights… Many kilos to carry for three nights of camping, watching the eclipse, and returning home smelling like smoke and self-sufficient sea snails.
Ariel lives in the village but isn’t one of the fishermen. While some people work in oil, at the Santa Cruz thermoelectric plant, or in the hotels, Ariel has his own small business. He doesn’t remember exactly how many years ago a vacationer asked if he could help carry backpacks across the water. Ariel improvised a raft made of polystyrene foam and got the job done. In return, he earned a few pesos. That same day he did another trip for more newcomers, mostly college students, who are his most frequent clients. Since then, that’s been his main source of income. With his free time, he raises chickens, rabbits, and ducks. He’s currently looking for a male duck, by the way.
People come to snorkel, spearfish, or just spend the day, and he’ll look after their cars or scooters. He doesn’t have a set rate, he accepts whatever you give, whatever you think is fair or can afford for the service.
Ariel turned 52 and has lived in Boca de Canasí all his life. In the 1990s, when Fidel opened the borders to rafters, there was a truck that dropped off four or five makeshift boats on the beach nearly every day. It was loaded with people leaving the country. Many had contacts, and there were large ships waiting a few miles offshore, in international waters, to pick them up. Quite a few ended up redirected to the US Naval Base in Guantanamo. But Ariel never got the urge to leave. No one in the village did, he says.
After that, the most significant thing that happened in the town was when Obama and Raúl made agreements. At that time, people were thinking, “Obama opened things up. Now folks from abroad will come, park their yacht here, have lunch, and leave at night or the next day.” That’s why house prices boomed. Some run-down homes were going for as much as 30 or 40 thousand dollars. “But then Trump came and stopped everything cold,” Ariel says.
From one side of the Canasí River to the other is a good 100 meters. Sometimes you stub your toe on a rock or sink up to your neck, but the water never fully covers you if you know where to go—or if you have the right guide.
Once you cross the river, you arrive in another world. A fig tree growing between rocks, a dead crab, an eel on the beach, sand flies at sunset, hours-long walks under sea grape trees, or hair stiffened by saltwater. They all bring you back to the most basic elements of human existence. There’s no music, no phone. The only obligations are eating and sleeping. Lighting a fire there has a different feeling than in your backyard. And coffee can take 20 minutes to brew, and that’s just fine.
That night, I slept better than a baby, as they say.
The word eclipse comes from Greek and means “disappearance” or “abandonment.” It’s a phenomenon in which light from a celestial body is blocked by another eclipsing body. Sometimes, metaphorically, one can choose.
First published in Spanish by Joven Cuba and translated and posted in English by Havana Times.