Sugar
Cardenas is not far from Varadero and there is a sugar plantation there. The collapse of the Soviet Union collapsed the sugar market in Cuba. The mill has been turned into a museum. Unlike museums in Canada, you need a guide, there are no signs and no dioramas.
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Cutting sugar cane by hand with a machete.
Which is not done any more - machines are used
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| You need long pants, sleeves & gloves - sugar cane leaves cut like corn. |
I have a bunch of pix of the equipment, but I don't really know what it all does. The guide was hard to understand. The cane is cut up and pressed for juice, which is then boiled to separate sugar crystals from "honey". The sugar, which they called "brown" and we would probably call "raw" is further refined into white sugar. The "honey" is used for animal feed and to make rum. I wonder if the "honey" is Golden Syrup (treacle)?
We got to taste the juice - it tasted a bit like honeydew melon.
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| Small cane juicing machine. |
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| A big cane juicing machine |
The leftover pulp is used to make paper and also burned to generate electricity. When this factory was shut down, the surrounding area had no power.
The museum is also a museum of steam engines. We took a ride on one from the factory to Carednas.
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| Abandoned warehouse once used for sugar along the rail lines from the mill to Cardenas |
At the end of the tour they gave us each 2 full-sized bottles of rum.
Cardenas
Cardenas itself is a monotony of 1-storey rectangular cement block houses set side by side, with tiny yards, if they have yards at all. It had the same mix of empty, faded and beautiful as Varadero and Havana.
This is the real Cuba. People here travel by horse & buggy, bicycle or on foot.
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| High school girls in uniform |
Studio 55
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| The main room |
Ceiling of the main room
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| The back room |
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