Trinidad

---

The road from Santa Clara to Trinidad is apparently the worst we would need to experince for the whole trip. This is good, because the road was seriously bad. I don´t think there are a lot of roadworks that go on. Perhaps it´s because there aren´t that many cars on the road? It is quite funny to see wide, major highways with no cars, or just one or two.

It was quite a scenic drive and we stopped on a moutaintop lookout to have lunch. The Cuban landscape is quite stunning... very lush and green.

We arrived in Trinidad late in the afternoon and were welcomed by the ´main house´host with a fabulous rum-based cocktail. It was so good we all asked for seconds.

Have I mentioned that drinks here are super cheap? I bought 3 drinks at lunch time and paid 3 CUCs. Mexico was the same. You´d pay 3 dollars for a cocktail made of 4 or 5 different liquors.

We met our own host family and had a lovely dinner there. As with the first host family, there was way too much food. We are figuring that they eat what we leave... and we leave a lot. At this dinner we ended up in such a great conversation that we lost track of time and had our guide and the main-house host come looking for us as we were all going out for drinks and to listen to another salsa band.

The music here is just sensational.

Tonight we are having salsa lessons, so I´m assuming we´ll be going dancing after that.

Merryn and I spent the day wandering around the old town of Trinidad today, shopping. Lots of shopping. We bought some fantastic oil paintings. I was umming and ahring about one, as it was a lot more than I was willing to pay. However, once 3 Czech guys came in, drunk, arrogant and eyeing off my painting, I just stepping in and said "I'll take it". They didn't deserve it and probably wouldn't appreciate it. And it felt so good to whip it out from under them! Heee.

We have another full day here tomorrow and I believe we are heading out into a forrest to swim in a waterfall and then off to the beach.

This place has everything!

On our last day we visited a waterfall about a 20 minute drive and 30 minute walk out of Trinidad. It hasn´t been as hot as I expected, but it certainly has been humid. By the time we got to the waterfall we were all very keen to jump into the lovely cool water. The walk back from the waterfall was eventful. I stumbled across a snake. Fortunately our tour leader had already explained that they don´t have any poisonous snakes here, so I didn´t completely freak out when the slow moving black snake slithered across my path. I just let out a few choice expletives, but that was as bad as it got. Then one of the girls twisted her ankle. Twice. She had to hobble the last 5 minutes of the walk back to the bus.

We also went to the beach. It was quite overcast but still nice to lay on deck-chairs and just relax. Mind you, overcast eventually became torrential rain. It cleared by the time we got to dinner.

Dinner was a lovely affair. We went to the main house and were entertained by a guitarist who serenaded us with Cuban songs. As two of us in the group also play guitar, we had a few sing-alongs of any songs we could remember how to play.

Cuban cicars were also smoked. Merryn and I shared one and only managed to get through half of it. There are some good photos to come.

---