Cienfuegos and the Bay of Pigs

Beach at Bay of Pigs where Cuban exiles landed

Cienfuegos is another Spanish colonial town, right on a beautiful bay on the south side of Cuba.  There is a large back bay and a peninsula with old homes that run from one side of the peninsula to the other, so both have bay views.

beautifully carved plaster ceiling in the palace

The old historical center has a wide boulevard with a pretty median and many old colonial buildings and homes lining the street.  Some have been renovated; most have not, and the ravages of wind and salt from the Caribbean have taken a large toll, particularly on the carved plaster and pillars.  The center plaza is very large with well-restored buildings lining its shady interior.  Of particular interest is the theater whose interior is just as it was a century ago, complete with hard wooden theater seats, balconies and lovely carved archways and pillars.

restored colonial building

On the peninsula, one gorgeous villa is very Moorish in design and is now a rather mediocre restaurant.  But, its intricately carved walls, arches and ceilings are spectacular as is the view from its rooftop terrace.  Nearby is a really excellent paladar (private restaurant) with shaded tables right on the bay.  We enjoyed a great lunch of roasted pork, soup and vegetables there before leaving for the Bay of Pigs and on to Havana.

detail of restored house with popular stained glass windows and wrought iron balcony

The Bay of Pigs is important to our generation as we were in our late teens when this ill-planned and ill-fated mission to dethrone Fidel Castro took place in April of 1961.  This was the precursor to the much more serious threat of the Cuban Missile Crisis in October of 1962.  I remember being at Stanford-in-Italy in Florence at the time and being quite terrified that this could become a nuclear disaster for the U.S. and Europe.  It all began at the Bay of Pigs with a 3 day effort by Cubans who had defected to the U.S. after the fall of the dictator, Batista, to overthrow Fidel Castro.  They expected Cubans to rise up and join them in ending the Castro dictatorship, but, instead, Cubans rose up in defense of the Castro revolution.

Cuban air force plane used at Bay of Pigs

The museum at Playa Giron (one of the Bay of Pigs landing sites—the other was Playa Larga, farther up the bay) tells the story from the Cuban side.  It’s always interesting to see someone else’s point of view and this one, particularly so.  The U.S. is the imperialist aggressor, as no doubt we seemed to the Cubans at the time even though the invaders were all Cubans who trained in and launched from Central America.  They had persuaded President Kennedy that Cubans would flock to their cause, but, when that did not happen, the U.S. left them to their fate, which was capture and imprisonment by a victorious Cuban army and militias.  And this ignominious defeat took only 3 days.

Russian tank used by Cubans to block invasion

After that, Russia began building missile sites on the beaches facing the U.S., which we intend to visit, and the frightening confrontation with the Soviet Union and Kruschev started.