January 21st 2019

The bus to Santiago wasn't until the late morning, so we had a chance to spend a little more time in Bayamo before heading to Santiago de Cuba.
The host at the casa particular prepared breakfast for us which was absolutely delicious, we made a mental note to request breakfast in Santiago as well.

Beatriz came to meet us at the casa, we chatted for a while, and she walked us to the bus station with us. The Viazul bus station was tiny and we chatted with some friendly Italians. Patricia and Beatriz and I chatted for a little while. Beatriz explained how happy she was with the new towels from the day before, but she didn't want to be selfish, so she sent half of them to a friend who lives in the country. I've noticed this before on previous trips, and I'm always pleasantly surprised at how selfless Cubans can be.

The bus was a little delayed, but we finally got on our way, Beatriz waved to us from bus terminal. The bus ride was a little over two hours, which was a nice break after everything we had done the day before. The bus station was busy, but we finally found a reasonably priced taxi, and headed over to our casa particular. The casa was a small bed and breakfast, located very centrally in the city in an old colonial house.

The biggest surprise when we arrived in Santiago was how incredibly hilly it was. I had always thought of Cuba as generally being pretty flat, outside of the mountains of course. But walking around Santiago turned out to be a pretty serious workout. A few streets had stairs actually cut into them, and we became pretty familiar with them over the next few days.

Our first trip down the stairs, before we got tired of them.

Our initial reason for traveling to Santiago was a New York Times article about a small dive bar next to the Rum Museum. It was early afternoon, so we took the opportunity to head over as soon as possible. We had read some snippets online that said the Rum Museum might be closed. Rosa, the lady who ran our casa particular, assured us that it was still open. We arrived to find the Rum Museum had been converted into a fancy bar. On a hunch, we went around the corner and found the bar we were looking for.

NYT Profile of Eduardo Corona

The bar was on the small side, but still had plenty of room for a band, a large bar, and a whole lot of tourists fresh off of a cruise ship.

Behind the bar stood the man himself, Eduardo Corona, wearing a starched white shirt, black bow tie, and his signature Bacardi apron with a prominent bat.

He was very busy making Mojitos and small talk with the various tourists, so we sat down at a free table and watched him work. Each mojito was a work of art, starting with dousing a slat of rum barrel in rum, lighting it on fire, and applying each glass to the fire before making the mojito. In addition to being a cool party trick, the fire adds a distinctive smoky taste to each mojito.

The whole time Eduardo never stopped moving, rushing back and forth to get just the right formula for each and every drink. Eventually the tourists began to thin out, and we managed to order our own round of mojitos.

One of the finished mojitos.

The bar as it was winding down.

Finally it was just the three of us in the bar, Eduardo poured a couple of glasses of premium rum, and I tried a daiquiri, which was excellent, of course.

The premium rum was also excellent.

Eduardo was also kind enough to pose for a few photos, as well as showing us his collection of vintage Bacardi labels.

We learned about some of the finer points of good sipping rum.

Finally we closed down the bar.

We headed over to la casa for a short siesta before heading to dinner. The restaurant was called Roy's terrace inn, the entire restaurant was in a rooftop garden. The food wasn't particularly great, but the ambiance made up for it.

We headed over to the riverfront, hoping to check out the beer garden, but they were already sweeping up, even though it was still fairly early. We walked around town for a while before heading back to our casa.