Steven's Peak-bagging Journey

April 2, 2024

995m

Holguín, Cuba

La Mensura refers to a large and broad plateau somewhere halfway between Holguín and Santiago de Cuba, and the highest point on this plateau boasts over 600 m prominence and that’s how Raphael and I noticed it. This was the final objective that we bagged during our brief stay in Cuba but was not on the original itinerary. We got the high point, Pico Turquino as well as the bonus peak, Gran Piedra and still had 2 days to kill, so we naturally went to the peakbagger app to search for other options. The biggest prize in the vicinity would be Pico Cristal but that’s in a national park and the park’s closed due to the ongoing fuel and economic crisis. They were not able to open the park just for us this time. La Mensura also locates inside a national park, but this one was still open probably because of a waterfall that was still attracting tourists. Our lead guide Damian was able to book us a day-tour to this park including a visit to the waterfall and a hike to the highest point at the price of 100 USD per person. This time the itinerary and price was not negotiable as it’s no longer a private tour and the payment must be done by card to the “company”. Raphael and I did not want to use our credit cards in Cuba due to some legitimate concerns but Damian pointed out an alternative way, that was to purchase a local card worth of 200 USD from a designated hotel/bank and make the payment through that card. Fortunately this method could be done with the cash in our hands as otherwise we would have to skip this objective.

Damian showed up at our “casa particular” at 8 am on the 4th day of our stay, and the drive would take 2 hours. Most of the drive was on the freeway heading towards Holguín but the final 10 kilometers was on some rough dirt roads that apparently required 4WD. That’s one reason why the price was expensive. There’s a fancy but empty restaurant at the trail-head and we got our local guide there. Again despite the easiness of this objective we were legally required to have a guide as it’s in a national park. About half an hour later we were finally permitted to start the ascent.

The guide spoke no English but I was able to communicate with him in Spanish for a little bit. This guy was quiet but very strong. Raphael and I had to work hard to keep up with the pace. Asides the intolerable heat this hike was not as “short” as we thought, and still involved about 8 km round trip with 300 m elevation gain. The entire route was on an old and deactivated road. This road was clearly not drivable anymore, and had become quite overgrown even for hiking. Upon reaching the highest point the guide led us further and climbed to the top of an old and broken house for better views. This climb involved a few 5th class mantle moves that turned out to be the hardest in this entire trip to Central America and the Caribbeans.

After down-climbing the house we made a single dash back to the trail-head. Again the heat was not easy to manage, but we toughed it out. We were then served with a luxurious meal in that fancy restaurant. Asides one group of German tourists doing a day tour to that waterfall we saw nobody around and perhaps the most exciting sighting from this outing was the bunch of peacocks in that restaurant. I wondered why or how were they able to keep such an amazing restaurant while hardly anybody went there. Raphael and I then decided to skip that waterfall as we learnt that it’s rather mediocre by North American standard, and went directly back to Santiago de Cuba. We walked around the city in the evening during the daily power outage (they were rationing electricity), and learnt more about the life of these averaged Cuban people. Needless to say, they were not doing great. The next day was then a full “buffer” day and I spent most of the day inside the house to write the trip reports.