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Published: October 11th 2007
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Trinidad Road Trip
Wow, what a weekend… its gonna be a mission to try to fit in all the stories but I’ll give it a shot.
After much indecisiveness and guilt, I abandoned 2 sick friends, missed another friend’s (possible) afternoon birthday dancing outing, hopefully made it up 2 her by going out 4 peso pizza and getting her a cute prez, missing my 2nd yoga class in a row… I finally decided to go to TRINIDAD on another “excursión” which seemed ridiculously cheap with a group of other European students. (Not my usual lot, they were all very ill, hospitalised or chasing a Cuban girl). The ridiculously cheap bit of course had its reasons as we found out… actually seemed ridiculously expensive at times as some of the following stories will reveal.
The craziness all started with the bus ride. There were 10 of us and about 15 Cubans. Most of r lot had brought ron or cerveza 4 the journey and proceeded to get rat-arsed... but still were shamefully sober compared to their Cuban counterparts who opened bottle after bottle after bottle of Bucanero beer. Consequently our yellow school bus had to make pee-pee stops literally
every 10 minutes. There was 1 woman we named blondie/barbie (4 obvious reasons) who was off her face from the moment we left Habana on fri eve until the moment I saw her getting on the bus home on sun afternoon to go back (just after throwing up in Trinidad’s parque central…beautiful). Nearly 7 hours after leaving La Habana we arrived eventually in the pitch dark at a place with cabañas in the middle of nowhere… not in Trinidad as we had expected. We stumbled bewlildered off the bus into an empty concrete bar playing the obligatory reggatton and got sent school trip/military command style to our dorm/cabaña where some of the English girls freaked out over spiders/cucarachas, the drunk dutch girls broke the shower then there was no running water (toilets included) and one of the dutch girl’s drunkenness turned into a fever then we tried to sleep to the background of the never ending blondie & co’s drinking extravaganza.
In the morning we went to the beach - Playa Ancón. I’m getting spoilt with these beautiful Caribbean beaches now! It was gorgeous even if we didn’t chose the best spot (as normal, too many people in the group and a nearby bar were responsible) but I explored with my goggles and a couple of the other girls, we swam down to the other end which was almost deserted andd managed to find a a couple of beautiful shells to make jewellery with. Always feel bad about taking shells from the beach - destroying the bio-diversity balance or something - so I was very selective!
In the evening we got taken (military style again) back to our accommodation, told we had 10 mins to shower and pack up our stuff coz we were getting kicked out of this campismo as it was only for Cubans (even tho we have residence cards now) and shipped off to another 1! We wouldn’t actually get to see the new campismo until we got back from our night out in Trinidad… definatelya good thing that it was softened with tiredness and alcohol! We ate at a nice Cuaban comedor (included in the price). Of course this meant bringing up the “soy vegetariana” issue… not something particularly understood here but they always try to do something for you. It means explaining that not only do I not eat “carne” but that also means no chicken. I had this conversaton earlier with my Cuban friends at lunch, it turned into almost an hour of talking about what a vegetarian does and doesn’t eat and them thinking about vegetables as something that you actually eat! In the restaurant the rice came with lumps of meat fat in…nice! We went to a bar called “Bar Daquiri” where we tried the local speciality cocktail “cancháchara” - rum, honey, lime and water - which I loved even if some ppl thought it tasted like lemsip! Then we moved onto the Plaza Mayor were the Casa de Música as live salsa and son (typical Cuban music) playing outside every night for free. There were several old couples dancing, so cute! I swallowed my shame and danced salsa with some old men, who really are the best teachers because they are patient and have the most experience! We moved on to the legendary club La Cueva - in an underground cave! It was awesome, even if there was some strobe lighting and cheesy old school dance (remember “What is love? Baby don’t hurt me…”?). We didn’t want to leave but the gua-gua (school bus) was picking us up and taking us back to our new pad… maybe it would have been better to stay out all night! The new campismo made the 1st one look like a palace. There were no sheets but the dictator woman gave us 1 each which we put over the paper-thin mattresses… I’ll sleep pretty much anywhere so when I saw a cucaracha (cockroach) on my mattress I just turned it over and settled down… but some girlies where not happy!! In the morning we got to see that although the cabanas weren’t exactly luxurious the surroundings were stunning - mountains covered with lush greenery and a nearby river. These campismos are where the Cubans can go on holiday (they r either banned form or restricted due to money from tourist hotels etc). Corninna’s faculty has a campismo trip planned which I’ve been invited on too, and im now really looking forward to… not sure how Corinna will like it tho!!
We spent the day walking around Trinidad, a gorgeous old colonial town, popular with tourists as it is a UNESCO World Heritage site. I loved it’s traquilidad - cute cobbled streets, horse and carts, stunning views and beautiful old buildings. I felt so safe and relaxed compared to the locura of La Habana. Me and two other girls, Patricia (German) and Berber (Dutch) decided to stay one more day to explore and get some independence away from the dictatior woman and the pack of foreigners. We found lovely casa particular thru a contact Anita had given me, where they gave us a good deal and delicious food, best I’ve had 4 ages! Prawns!! OMG it was soooo good to sleep in a real bed, to have a proper shower and most of all be free to make decisions! We went again to the Casa de Musica where we met some people form the previous night and did a little more salsa with a little more rum. J A comparatively early nite tho to get ready for the next day as we had to be at the bus stop at 1. On our last day we rented bikes and went on a wicked ride down, down down into the Valle de los Ingenios (Valley of the Sugar mills) where there used to be sugar plantations in the 19th Century andnow there are ruins of the houses of the bosses and the slave quarters. We didn’t have much time butwe made it to Manaca Iznaga, 16km from Trinidad where we went up a huge tower which the brutal plantation owner (one of the richest men in Cuban at the time and the main slave traffiker) used to use to look out over his slaves. Amazing view of the valley, the rolling hills and the Escambray mountains. We had to crazily pedal back (up hill! Without gears) to make the bus but it was worth it, one of my fave experiences so far in Cuba. Id love to get a bike and just go all over the island. At the bus station it was all a bit mental. We had put our name on the “waiting list” yday but they wouldonlylet me and Patricia goon the bus as Berber didn’t have a residence card. This meant she had to go on another bus - a touristone and pay $25 cuc and we paid 66 moneda nacional (approx £2) (she paid about 8 times what we did!) This is great for us - the buses are really good quality and so cheap! We made some random stops including one where a policeman came on with a sniffer dog to check for drugs, and a few other stops to buy fruit in bulk and then sell it at the next one!
Arrived back in Habana feeling refreshed and relaxed, definitely what I needed and has whet my appetite for more adventure.
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