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Published: January 27th 2007
The bus arrived at 7am in the morning. I walked past the small gaggle of people promoting their casas particulares and walked to the address Sofía had given to me.
I was met at the door by two very friendly old ladies who gave me coffee, then explained that they’d let the room that had been reserved for me because Sofía had warned them I had stayed at Guantánamo and so may not have made the bus connection.
They brought their next-door neighbour round and I went round to hers. She seemed a real sourpuss and I felt rather depressed. This was the fourth time I’d stayed somewhere different than planned and I guess it’s just the way it is round here. I certainly don’t begrudge Sofía.
Anyway, rather than resting in bed, I thought I’d take advantage of being up that early and see the town while it was not so hot and busy.
Trinidad is very different from any other town I’ve seen in Cuba: it’s clean! The city centre is perfectly preserved with colonial architecture. The centre is free of traffic and well maintained. However, you don’t have to walk far to find streets
like anywhere else.
I walked up some of the hillside above the town to enjoy the views down to the sea and up to the surrounding mountains, then returned to pick thorns out of my sandals.
I was quite tired, so had a siesta. That afternoon, I delivered a letter given to me by someone in Baracoa. They don’t have much of a postal service here.
The following day, I hit the church (with its beer-drinking French tourists) and the museums. There were some nice colonial artifacts and view points to see the lovely spectacle of the red-rooftopped town.
Despite its small size, Trinidad is Cuba’s third most popular visitor attraction and that does bring in a lot of people and money. But, ordinary people still live in the town centre.
Back at the house, a new tourist has moved into the other room. Oscar is from Salamanca, Spain. We spent the next day hanging out together.
It’s the first time I’ve spoken in Spanish to an actual Spanish person since I started learning the language. I did find the accent a bit difficult. It must be what it’s like for foreigners who have
learned American English when they visit the country where the language was invented...
That night, I didn’t sleep so well. I think it was partly because my head was buzzing from speaking so much Spanish, but my thoughts were beginning to go home too. Three weeks is quite a long time for travelling.
After breakfast, Oscar and I took a taxi to the local beach: the beautiful sands of the Peninsular de Ancón, for an hour. It was beautiful and I had my first and only swim in the Caribbean. We both share the same disinterest in beach holidays but felt we wanted to have one brief look. One hour was quite enough for me!
We just chilled for the rest of the day, before I caught the bus to Havana.
On the bus, I was talking to two English girls one of whom was half Indian and the other half-Chinese. We had some interesting conversations about Cuba, India and China. It’s funny how you go to one place and learn lots about completely different places.
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