From the Mouth of the River – Images of Cuba

It was raining on and off at the mouth of the Yumuri River. There were a scattering of small fishing boats passing in and out of the river mouth under the bridge. They made their way from the Punta del Fraile where the storm created an impressive surf. There weren’t many tourists and the little restaurant on the north side of the bridge was closed. Some men were standing under the palms watching the ocean. Others joked and teased one another while they worked on their boats. Some drank warm cans of Cristal beer. A few smoked cigars on the covered porch of a little wooden shack near where flimsy docks stuck out into the river just inside the bridge. Most of them were just waiting. And who can blame them? I wasn’t really interested in being out on those waves in a little tiny boat….Up the river however was another thing.

One of the men waiting for the rain to pass said that the river’s name, “Yumuri” comes from the words the indigenous people’s of the area yelled as they threw themselves from the dramatic cliffs above the mouth of the waterway to show their opposition to the treatment they got from the Spanish. Which we know wasn’t good….

The Spaniards enter the large house nearby, for this was happening at its door, and in the same way, with cuts and stabs, begin to kill as many as they found there, so that a stream of blood was running….I saw here cruelty on a scale no living being has ever seen or expects to see.”

(Bartolomeo de Las Casas)

It is a heartbreaking story and illustrates the pain the area saw under the Spanish conquest…but perhaps it is apocryphal. There are some other theories on the origion of the name.

….a study by journalist Idalmis León notes that in Cuban lexicography, the word “yu” means white, while the term “ari/uri” refers to river.
This doesn’t mean that the exact translation is white river, but its close, noted the writer….

It rained on the trip upriver. Soft and gentle and quiet and wonderful. While we made our way Paul Simon’s “Spirit Voices” ran through my head…

We sailed up a river wide as a sea
And slept on the banks
On the leaves of a banyan tree
And all of these spirit voices rule the night

Some stories are magical, meant to be sung
Song from the mouth of the river
When the world was young……

Here are a few more images of Cuba from the mouth of the Yumuri and the little bay around the point. This was May 24th 2016. I travelled to Cuba on assignment with Espiritu Travel, a company that runs small group tours to the island with the intention of helping Cubans grow their private economy. Be sure to check them out.

I will continue adding to the images of Cuba I’ve already put up here on my website over the coming weeks. Also drop by my photography website for more images of Cuba.  Without further ado or comment…..

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