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ArmandoWyo
climber
Wyoming
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Topic Author's Original Post - Feb 21, 2016 - 02:25pm PT
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I am going to take the liberty of a public post to tell my climbing friends something personal. Being a fixture in the climbing community for 47 years may earn me some slack. If you don’t know me, please read no farther.
I want to tell those who for a decade have followed the saga of my banishment from Cuba that a couple of weeks ago I was allowed to return to Cuba.
I was in Miami, and used the opportunity to try to enter Cuba again, alone and without telling anyone. I preferred that the anticipated rebuff be private.
At the immigration counter in Havana, it was quick and anticlimactic. The “inadmissible” word wasn’t mentioned. I still didn’t know if I’ve been forgiven or it was just the new computers.
Thus ended eleven years as a persona non grata, which included five prior turn-arounds, three mendacious official assurances that I could return, and two nights sleeping on the floor under-guard.
I managed a quick trip to Viñales, epicenter of climbing in Cuba. The homecoming was heartfelt, and being Cuba, euphoric and emphatic, with howls of disbelief, bearhugs, and rum.
Still, I was not prepared for the changes to Viñales.
When I first saw the Valle de Viñales in 1998, it was not yet a World Heritage Site nor a national park, as it is today. I saw a valley of small farms nettled among unclimbed walls of bullet-proof Karst limestone. I felt at home after an hour’s exploration of the small town at its core.
There was sizable tourism, but it was visitors on day-trips from Havana, perhaps an overnight stay at one of three hotels outside of town, and sight-seeing stops at two venues near town - both natural desecrations and embarrassments to the rest of us. Most important of all, the people of the valley and town receive little benefit from tourism.
Climbers were the first visitors who stayed more than one night. We were there to climb. Some like Craig Luebben and me were there for months. We only stayed in town, at one of the two dozen homes that rented rooms. We eat at their homes too. There was one government restaurant; it was years before I sampled its meager food. We were nightly regulars at the one private bar-club. The local authorities would shut Casa Dago frequently.
Others began to discover Viñales, just as we had. It has become the most visited area in Cuba for outdoor recreation, such as hiking, birding, caving. Now more than 750 Cubans families rent rooms to visitors, and there are over 50 restaurants in private homes. Most amazing is the construction seen on almost every block of even more rooms and eateries.
The changes launched by climbers almost two decades ago have made Viñales the most prosperous, dynamic, entrepreneurial town in Cuba. Today, the Valle de Viñales’ 10,000 people are probably the richest in Cuba on a per capita basis.
Yet, I was banished because the government blamed me for climbing. Not just bringing, developing, and publicizing climbing, but including Cubans on our initial explorations and bring them equipment to climb with us.
On our first trip, Craig Luebben surprised all of us when he opened a duffle of gear he had brought in anticipation of finding Cubans who were climbing. Eventually providing them with bolts and drills allowed the Cubans to take the lead in most new routes development. In three successive generations, Anibal Fernández, Josué Millo, and Yarobys García led all others combined in new routes. As a result Cuba is unlike other climbing destinations in the third world areas because most routes have been done by locals.
The government has never reconciled to climbing; indeed not even to hiking or any other sport that it did not create and does not control.
In 2012, the government closed the valley of Viñales to all access whether for climbing, hiking, birding, or caving. The closure was never explained or publicized. I don’t know anyone who has seen or read it. The most likely explanation is that the military ordered it because of its never-ending opposition to unescorted foreigners wandering the mountains and rural areas. Once a Cuban climber was warned that terrorists might be planting bombs on routes. The Cuban’s straight-faced response was, “I thought they placed bombs where they would kill people?”
The closure has become a predictable, choreographed dance: the local officials pretend climbing is prohibited, and climbers pretend to obey. Everyone is happy. No one has been cited or had any type of punitive action. Those inadvertently caught climbing are asked politely to stop and move on.
For 10 years, the government has refused to let the Cubans form their own organization, even within the official sports bureau. The climbers are not anti-government. They care about climbing, not politics, although one lesson I’ve learned is that in Cuba everything is political. The Cuban climbers had a website for new routes, events and the like. At a reunion it was called out as “counter-revolutionary” because it focused only on climbing.
The government usually labelled me as the “leader”, even though the Cuban climbers have been in the lead for a dozen years. It was convenient to blame an outsider and to pretend that climbing was something done by foreigners, not Cubans.
I am an American, but my roots are in Cuba. Knowledgeable Cuban friends believe that I would not be inadmissible if I was not Cuban-American and especially not part of the Menocal family. For good or bad, we have been part of Cuba’s history, especially its revolutions and suppressions. My great-grandmother was a cousin of Mario Garcia-Menocal, president of Cuba from 1912 to 1921, who fought as a rebel to liberate Cuba from Spanish rule.
When Fidel Castro was a neophyte student revolutionary, he was a frequent guest at the former president’s house in Havana. Almost all my family eventually broke with Castro and fled because of the denial of free elections. I don’t have even a distant cousin who is still in Cuba.
About all I have done the last 10 years is organize gear donations for the Cuban climber. I maintain a website that helps foreign climbers go to Cuba and co-authored the climbing guidebook. Few Cuban climbers have the guide, since it is not available in Viñales. Foreign climbers have been told that possession of the guidebook is prohibited.
The assumption is that I am now allowed to return, although I have a friend who was inadmissible, then allowed back in. Once. The next trip, rejected again.
We will return, but I’m not in a rush. There is ambivalence.
As I had boarded a bus back to Havana, a friend watched a state security agent flash his identification to the driver and quickly board the bus just as it pulled out. I knew that I was watched at times and my activities reported. My climbing notes and topos were photocopied. Once the local head of security pulled a ruse to get and examine my transistor radio. Someone pulled a switch, however, and gave him the radio Lynn Hill had left behind. Luckily Lynny's radio couldn’t transmit coded signals.
Everything hasn't changed.
Armando Menocal
February 21, 2016
Jackson, Wyoming
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SteveW
Trad climber
The state of confusion
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Feb 21, 2016 - 02:51pm PT
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Wow! Thanks for sharing!
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johntp
Trad climber
socal
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Feb 21, 2016 - 02:51pm PT
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I don't know you but read it anyways.
Thanks for the share although most of it went over my head.
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WanderlustMD
Trad climber
New England
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Feb 21, 2016 - 05:18pm PT
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Listen to his interview on the enormocast, it's interesting.
Glad they let you back in!
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Luwana
Social climber
Jackson, WY
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Feb 21, 2016 - 09:38pm PT
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I do know you ... as a person, not a climber. Thanks for posting your experience. Thanks for providing a little perspective to the reality of Cuba ... ambivalence seems like the perfect description. Cindy
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Bob Palais
Trad climber
UT
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Feb 21, 2016 - 10:04pm PT
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Namaste' Armando, if cross-cultural admiration lingo is permitted. It is wonderful to hear you have been able to share the joy and warmth and great hospitality, food and drink of Vinales, and of course the climbing, that you shared with many of us. It was truly one of the most memorably nice travels, and a close and international climbing community that we found there -from China, Czech, and many more. Yarobis, Oscar and his brother and in-laws, and many others took us in and around, recounted tales of Craig's and your early visits, Lynn' & Timmy & Brittany, Deucy getting Mucho Pompito, and everyone asked, How is Armando?! Thanks for showing us the way.
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Feb 21, 2016 - 10:25pm PT
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RAD!
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Gnome Ofthe Diabase
climber
Out Of Bed
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Feb 21, 2016 - 11:04pm PT
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Very special thanx for sharing,
Tonight we have some deep things to be thankful for.....
It is a thick and heavy Sunday night at the taco stand !
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MisterE
Gym climber
Small Town with a Big Back Yard
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Feb 21, 2016 - 11:12pm PT
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Thanks for persevering - an amazing and sad story.
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Scole
Trad climber
Zapopan
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Feb 22, 2016 - 08:22am PT
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Armando
Great to hear you got back in! How are our friends?
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Feb 22, 2016 - 11:41am PT
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Wow! Thanks for what is, to me, an amazing post.
John
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Brock Wagstaff
Trad climber
Larkspur
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Feb 22, 2016 - 01:30pm PT
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Many thanks for your post Armando. It's great that you were able to once again visit Cuba, and I'm hoping to one day do the same. If you get out to CA be sure to call, even if it's just for a few routes at the local SF gym.
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Calvinclimber
Big Wall climber
Bend, OR
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Feb 23, 2016 - 08:23am PT
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Armando, Thanks for the write-up. Really enjoyed hearing your perspective. Thanks for all you have done for the climbing community in Cuba!!!! Having been there twice, you are held in high regard in Cuba, at least by the climbing community.
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justthemaid
climber
Jim Henson's Basement
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Feb 23, 2016 - 08:29am PT
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Don't know you but it's a fascinating piece of climbing history. thanks for posting up and keep us updated.
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