By: Liborio País

 

In spite of anti-smoking campaigns, there is an alternative world of people interested in preserving the pleasure of smoking a good cigar, combining it with a traditional drink and experimenting 500 year old sensations.

Part of this rebellious group will again have the chance of becoming acquainted with the best cigars of the world during the 14th Cigar Festival planned for February 27 through March 2 in Havana.

The organizers of the meeting assert that about a thousand participants from sixty countries will attend this meeting of smokers that has exceeded its original purpose of providing the special privilege of smoking the exclusive also contributing to collect funding for public health.

The Genovese seafarer Christopher Columbus and the other members of his expedition became the first Europeans to appreciate this handcrafted product, perhaps the most authentic, indigenous and ancient of the Great Caribbean Island.

In 1492, Colombus watched the natives of this archipelago as they inhaled and exhaled the smoke of the tobacco plant; he tried it and spread this habit throughout Europe, since it was supposed to be one of the refinements discovered in the New World.

The future rendezvous of smokers to be held in the Cuban capital qualifies among the most relevant inasmuch as it exhibits Premium cigars (handmade), the best in the world. A similar encounter, The Big Smoke, held in Las Vegas, is denied this possibility since the American Government forbids their admission into American territory, on account of the Trade with the Enemy Act.

Prohibitions notwithstanding, Americans take a short trip to Havana to participate in the meeting that exhibits smoking masterpieces, as a result of a successful combination of soil, climate and the experience of producers.

The meeting is a worldly gathering for exchanging experiences, trying samples, the introduction of novelties, auctions and cigar-drink combinations, as well as for guided visits to tobacco plantations and factories; and last but not least, a superb closing ceremony.

The festival program closes with the exhibition and sale of humidors or furniture for the preservation of cigars. The organizers have decided to honor the brands Cohiba and Romeo y Julieta in the oncoming event, even though the most significant theme is the celebration of the first contact with European smokers.

As an original initiative, the Corporación Habanos summoned the Cigar International Contest in Imagenes, which will award a prize to the producers of audiovisual works.

On wellcoming night, dedicated to the Cohiba brand, a concert called Eclectic-Us is scheduled in the Karl Marx Theater, in Havana. The performers will include the Cuban singer Augusto Enríquez and his guests Phil Manzanera and Jack Bruce, the latter ex-member of a mythical rock band; the British trio Cream, with the guitar player Eric Clapton and the drum player Ginger Baker.

The subsequent cocktail party will take place in the Cristino Naranjo Club – adjacent to the Karl Marx Theater- a unique place by the sea that will receive the delegates to the event for the first time.

The date of the 520 anniversary of the discovery of tobacco in Cuba by the Europeans will be celebrated with a dinner in the Fine Arts Museum, alongside which there will be a tasting of a cigar especially created for the occasion together with the best cuisine inspired by the resulting give and take of the mixture of cultures originated on October the 12th, 1492.

The brand Romeo y Julieta will take precedence on the closing ceremony, on Friday, March 2, at a gala dinner including a trip around the history of this cigar brand founded in 1875, which throughout 137 years has adapted itself to the changing taste in order to continue being one of the most treasured.

The Humidor auction, in aid of the Cuban system of Public Health will be the culmination of the cigar assembly.

In the 2011 edition of the auction, the sale collected 787 thousand euros (one million 62 thousand 450 dollars) by means of the bidding of seven luxurious cabinets for the preservation of cigars.

The final concert included the Cuban singer Omara Portuondo, the Buena Vista Social Club diva, and the late Compay Segundo band.

The Prizes Cigar of theYear went to Cuban Armando Trujillo, under the production category; German Maximilian Herzog, under the business category, whereas under communication the award went to the also Cuban Adriano Martínez.

By: Liborio País

Besides its many contributions to the Cuban history, culture and idiosyncrasy, Santiago de Cuba also offers a different possibility to its visitors: situated at less than 20 km from the city center, this place takes us to ancient history, submarine life and remembrances of motor car transportation, among many other attractions.

We are referring to the Baconao Park, with an area of almost 85 thousand hectares, declared World Biosphere Reserve by the United Nations for Education, Science and Culture Organization (UNESCO) in 1987.

The place includes shelters for wild life, ancient coffee plantations, and a unique contrast between ocean depths and the heights of the Sierra Maestra Range.

Our attention is especially driven to a high point crowned by a huge rock, 25 meter- high, 30 meter- wide, with an estimated weight of 63 thousand tons, which gives the mountain its name, La Gran Piedra (Great Stone).

Visitors can access the top of this range by means of 459 steps and watch all the shades of green provided to the surrounding area by Mother Nature, at 234 meter above sea level.

Nature only could have placed such a huge lump of rock this high; there is still no artifact capable of raising this weight. It is said that it is possible to see the lights of the neighboring island of Jamaica—140 kilometers to the South of Cuba on a dark cloudless night or to make out the two coasts, the northern and southern, on clear-skied days.

Another striking option is the Prehistory Valley exhibiting dozens of life-size stone dinosaurs made of ferrocement.

Opened in the 80’s, the site exhibits some two hundred big sculptures portraying a wide range of gigantic saurian, as well as mammoths and other species which inhabited the earth millions of years ago.

To pay homage to the most significant species in nature, the human being, the artists sculpted a 12 meter high Crogmagnon man, bigger than all the rest in the valley.

There is a chronological sequence of the figures in relation to their geological ages, even some hunting scenes involving humans and animals.

A peculiarity of the Baconao Park lies in the Land Transport Museum, which has a stock of more than two thousand miniature vehicles, together with a collection of antique cars. It includes a 1958 Cadillac belonging to Benny More, appropriately called the “Genius of Rhythm”, or a 1956 convertible Thunderbird, driven by the Cuban musical star par excellence: Rosita Fornes.

Visitors will be able to watch replicas of cars used by personalities such as Soviet Vladimir Ilich Lenin, the 1938 Mercedes Benz which became Japanese Emperor Hirohito’s passion, another Mercedes Benz made in 1941 owned by German Adolph Hitler, the 1939 Packard whose owner was Soviet Joseph Stalin, or the 1912 model T Bird Ford belonging to the British Charles Chaplin used in several films.

The combination of sea and mountain stands out in several places of the park, inasmuch as the area lodges one of the most profound abysses of the sea: the Bartlett marine basin, seven thousand 680 meters deep and the second deepest of the Caribbean, only surpassed by the Puerto Rican basin, nine thousand 200 meters deep.