Steven's Peak-bagging Journey

March 31-April 1, 2024

1974m

Bayamo, Cuba

Pico Turquino is the highest peak in Cuba and subsequently boasts over 1500 m prominence. Cuba is not a small country but this is the only “ultra prominent peak” in the entire country and locates on the very southern part of the island. I came across this objective while reading Eric Gilbertson’s country highpoint project and I remembered some complicated logistics about getting into Cuba. That seemed odd because Cuba is a popular tropical destination for the Canadians, but I did not bother to dig further as I wasn’t interested in doing this peak myself. Fast forward to 2024 I was about to commit to a trip to the Caribbeans with a group of Californians and it simply made sense to include Pico Turquino as I’d be in the area anyway. The Americans were not planning to visit Cuba and I soon found out the reason, that apparently the Americans and the Cubans had been hating each other for decades. As an American it’d be difficult if not impossible to travel to Cuba for tourism purposes and I believe “peak bagging” does fall into the category of “tourism”, so that explains why there aren’t a lot of “beta” about this peak. I thought the situation would not apply to myself as I’m Canadian but that was not 100% true. The more I researched the more I realized how difficult the logistics would be. Pico Turquino locates about 3 hours of driving from Santiago de Cuba on the opposite side of the island from Havana where most of the international flights go into and out of Cuba. The international flights based of Santiago de Cuba are very limited and it’s not advisable to take the domestic flights from Havana to Santiago due to the ongoing fuel and economic crisis. In fact, a simple research on Google about Cuba revealed nothing but the grim situation about the lack of food, water, electricity, fuel and basically all of the basic life needs. There had been unprecedented protests across the country and especially in Santiago de Cuba that basically were telling me to “not go”, but I was not about to give up easily.

I spent a few hours reading and digging and found a few websites including “Caledonia Worldwide” from U.K. that offered trekking services and by the way, Pico Turquino locates inside one of the few national parks and it’s legally required to hire a guide. As much as I liked to be myself and do things in my own way I would abide the rule as Cuba is a communism country and it’d be stupid to fuck around with the authorities in this case. I reached out to three websites but only “Caledonia Worldwide” got back to me. A few emails back and forth later I got the plan laid out, and the owner was quoting me something like 1000 USD per person for a group of 2 for the 5-day all-inclusive package. I also reached out a few non-American friends but only Raphael Smith signed up. I knew they were ripping us off as there’s no way for the costs in Cuba to be that high despite the five-fold increase in the fuel cost since the beginning of March, but I had no other option as I knew absolutely nobody from the country. Raphael also expressed the concern that this entire website could potentially be a scam as they required us to pay the full amount by credit cards more than a month prior to the trip, but I accepted the risks as again, we had no other option.

The standard package was 3 days and 2 nights on the mountain but our stay in Santiago de Cuba was restricted by the limited international flights, hence the 5-day package. I would be arriving from Jamaica via InterCaribbean Airways and exiting through Miami via American Airlines, whereas Raphael would be taking the Miami route both ways. Neither of the airlines operates every single day so this was the best we could do, but then there were two P600m objectives in the vicinity that we could use to fill in the days. This U.K. company also gave us a quote for the bonus objectives but we rejected the offer. The quote for Gran Piedra that is not in a national park was 180 GBP (226 USD) but we managed to get a private taxi for only 60 USD in situ, and that showed how much extras we had paid for Pico Turquino. However, planning in situ has its own risks and I needed this primary objective to be 100% certain. In fact, the national park had been closed due to the ongoing crisis and they reopened it a few days prior to our arrival only to welcome us, so having this company on our side was proven to be rather essential. Back to the airlines talk, as both of us would be travelling through Miami we were essentially subjected to the same requirements as the U.S. citizens. In shorts, we needed the purpose of this trip to be not for tourism but rather to “support the Cuban people”, and the company was able to generate the itinerary and book the casa particular (our stays must be in private houses instead of the government owned hotels) to make sure our trip would not violate the requirements. Now despite the trip being successful I had been thinking about if we really had other options, and honestly I think this was our only shot.

The final crux would be the international flights. Due to the limited available airlines I had no “buffer day” for the arrival, and InterCaribbean Airways is a rather small company. In fact, the plane belongs to the small type that is more often used in Alaska and the other remote areas. There were only about 20 people boarding and the flight was delayed by almost 2 hours. I was quite stressed out as if the flight was cancelled then I would have planned and paid this trip for nothing, but then that’s also a risk that I knew but decided to take while committing to the trip. In the end the flight did take off and I got to Santiago de Cuba about an hour later at 8 pm. The immigration process was stressful as they wanted to search everything that I had brought, but the driver had been patiently waiting for my arrival and I was then transported to the casa particular (private house). There were hardly any vehicle on the streets (not surprisingly), but Raphael had gotten here for almost a day and the situation was actually not that bad. The dinner was well served, and the guide, Damian was also here to help us out. Damian spoke excellent English and I also speak some Spanish so the communication was easy, that Raphael and I were even able to shorten the trip to 2 days after promising to still pay him (precisely, his “company”) the full 3-day itinerary. In fact, Damian could even offer an 1-day option but there’s no way for us to know that without directly contacting him. Due to the scary media reports Raphael and I had together brought a few days worth of backcountry food and battery packs and we were fully prepared to spend a few nights in 30 degree Celsius temperatures without air conditioning nor electricity, but those all turned out to be “contingencies”. The electricity was on for most of the time, and the food and water was not a problem at all. They were definitely problematic for the Cuban people, but not for us visitors having access to the foreign currencies (USD in particular).

Damian together with the driver came at 5 am to pick us up, and we made sure to pack our shits together before that. The owners of the casa particular still got up to prepare our take-away breakfast and then Damian told us that the breakfast would also be served at the park’s entrance office about 3 hours later. That was a pleasant surprise, but due to the food crisis I ended up eating all of them, as why not. The only downside so far was not having mule nor porter services, and that was mostly because of our change of itinerary. Usually on expensive guided treks I would not have to carry an overnight pack, but I understood the lack of staffing here, so Raphael and I accepted that and carried our own shits including 5 L of water each. It turned out that the water and food was still available at the refugio/basecamp but it was good to have the contingencies in case things went south. Our plan was to do the peak as a traverse, approaching from Santo Domingo (not to be confused with the one in Dominican Republic) to the north, and exiting to Las Cuevas to the south. The north side approach had the advantage of having a higher starting point, but involves at least 200 m of up-and-downs. We firstly descended into the small village of La Platica to grab some chicken and water for Damian to carry, and then carried on for about 3 hours to the basecamp at Aguada de Joaquin. Raphael and I briefly attempted to bushwhack up Pico Palma Mocha but more than half of the bushes were thorny so we wisely turned around in less than 5 minutes after starting. The temperature and the humidity slowed us down, but we still got to the cabin/hut in the early afternoon, and spent the rest of the day relaxing and resting. As mentioned above the food and water was not a problem there (but mosquitos were). Raphael still preferred his dehydrated meals as he didn’t want to take any chance with food poisoning but I could not give a shit since I grew up in China with a strong stomach.

Raphael was very keen on watching sunrises for some reasons. I wasn’t super keen as the true summit is in the forest with limited views, but I eventually gave in. Damian is one of those guides that were simply there to “support” our trip and would do whatever we wanted. He also had the fitness and strength to back himself up as if he really wanted he could leave me in the dust in no time. The departure was set at 3:45 am and the plan was to hit the summit about an hour before sunrise. The night time temperature was more tolerable but the humidity was still brutal, that we all went shirtless in less than 10 minutes after starting. The route involved more up-and-downs including one major descent after passing Pico Joaquin (without actually tagging its high point), and we got limited views from various parts of the trail before the final push to the summit of Pico Turquino. The true summit was as expected, covered in forest so we followed Damian’s lead descending to the saddle between Pico Turquino and Pico Cuba to wait for sunrise. The sunrise was rather meh as we couldn’t even see the sun, but it was nice to have an hour break nevertheless.

We then followed Damian’s lead and found another viewpoint on the south side of Pico Cuba, and we actually got better views from this spot. That was not part of the plan, but definitely salvaged this sunrise mission. We had over 2000 m cumulative elevation to lose all the way down to Las Cuevas at the sea level, so we did not linger too long up there. The rest of the descent was tiring and eventually became unbearably hot after we got into the sunshine. The last few kilometers were brutal as the trail was covered in rocks of various sizes. The “basecamp” at Las Cuevas was not exactly on the coastline but Raphael made me descend all the way for a “reversed water bag”. Raphael also went into the ocean for a swim whereas I opted to stay dry. There were some big waves and big boulders and this was clearly not a tourists’ beach so I could not bother. About 2 hours later our pick-up driver showed up and we were then served with another excellent meal for lunch. Another 2 hours later we were back in the casa particular in Santiago de Cuba. En route we were able to discuss the plan for the next two objectives and Damian was able to set them up for us.