The soul of the mountain

The swaying in the cab of his truck strikes fear into me. Since 1981 he has been riding back and forth along this causeway, built by men with “hoes and shovels”. Noticing that I was tense, he tells me, “The road is fine today because it hasn't rained so much".

Roberto Peña was born in the city of Cienfuegos, but as a child he used to visit his uncle in a rural community and took a liking to the countryside and landscapes of the province of Villa Clara. During those trips, when he was barely 20 years old, he met the woman who would become his wife and started to work as a driver for the Cargo Transportation Base.

For over 30 years he has traveled this rocky road to carry food and toiletries or take the sick and the deceased to and from the mountain settlement of Pico Blanco; hence he has no shortage of anecdotes or assurance to point out that these hills have given him everything: "love, commitment, life...", which he does not change for anything.

A long and difficult journey takes us 440 meters above sea level. It’s worth the effort, because every one of Pico Blanco’s 197 inhabitants has or is a story.

Ricardo ‘Tongo’ Turiño is both a historian and history itself. Tongo is a must-meet person for those who visit Pico Blanco. The weight of his wisdom and his almost 70 years of age forced him to walk half-bent, cane in hand, along these trails that he knows better than he does himself. That is why the townsfolk call him the historian of the town—and rightly so.

As Tongo himself says: "To really feel things you have to live them". And he has lived a lot. "I have seen the birth, development and decay of this community," he says, at once sad and outraged, because he knows that the responsibility falls on man, the same man on whom today he places his hope to salvage what has been lost.

"I have a lot of confidence in young people, so I hope they will help us get this community back on its feet. But to do that you have to be willing, for this is about pickaxes, crates and machetes," he says.

He remembers the time when more than 60,000 cans of coffee were harvested, and then a beloved neighbor could not stand the hardness of the hill and left, followed by another, and another... until Pico Blanco was left with half of its population.

"Most of communities at the Escambray Mountains are destroyed or abandoned. We have to keep improving the quality of life of the mountain people, the roads, the economy, communications, or else we are lost. I am not leaving, I love this mountain range too much," he assures, "I hope that everything will be like it used to be."

Benedicta Coches gets up early every day. At 7:00 a.m. she is ready to walk to the coffee plantation, about four kilometers from her house. She is one of those women of yesteryear to whom Tongo refers. She was not born in Pico Blanco, but she moved in at a very young age. And it already seems it’s not blood but this mountain and its coffee what runs through her veins.

She’s 60 something, but she can collect up to two cans a day. "It depends on the species; I prefer Arabica coffee for harvesting, for drinking and for everything,· she holds.

Sergio Bombino, 60, is a native of Pico Blanco. He has worked in the local mini-bakery since he was 29, first as an apprentice, then as an operator, until he became a master baker (a position he still holds today).

For 31 years Sergio has dedicated himself to this trade, which he calls his whole life. That's why he flatly refused to ‘hang up his gloves’ even after a fracture in his right arm that led to three surgeries and a spinal disc herniation that left him almost disabled. "I am deeply committed to this community,” he insists.

When Leticia Valladares graduated top of her class as a teacher and was assigned to Pico Blanco to do her social service—unlike the rest of her classmates, who were sent to eastern Cuba—her mother told her: "Now you’re done, you are doomed to rot there".

At that time, Leticia told her that she did not like “hillbillies”, a thought that changed two months later when she crossed paths with Sergio on her way to the local school. They dated for a month and 18 days and then got married. She remembers that when they spoke for the first time, she was surrounded by children and he approached her to ask if they were her children.

“‘Are you nuts?! I’m 17, these are my students,’ I replied. Thus it all began... and here we are 41 years later. For five years we lived in Manicaragua, my hometown, but we had to go back. My family still questions me, telling me that I wasted my life and my youth on these hills, but I think it's quite the opposite".

And so you talk to one and another, and history repeats itself 197 times. Old and young, they all repeat these stories of love for Pico Blanco. A community named after a white rock on the top of a hill could not dye its soul in any other color. Some were born here and others elsewhere, but this mountain village is like a magnet of purity.