Cuba Part 2 - Santa Clara and Trinidad

---

March 30
Left about 9 for Trinidad via Santa Clara, where we visited the Che Guevera museum, memorial and burial place, very interesting and most important to Cuban people. Che and the Castro brothers are national icons and everywhere you go there are photos, posters and signs about them and "Vive la Revolucion"! There are statues and monuments all over Cuba to other heroes of the revolution, such as Jose Marti, Camilo Cienfuegos and Frank Pais, and streets across Cuba are named for them. It was a beautiful but very steep and windy drive through to Trinidad across the mountains and down through the national park.
Got to Trinidad in the early afternoon and our group went off to different home stays (casas) for the next 3 nights. We stayed with Eugenia and Nancy, who were wonderful hosts, neither spoke English but we got by somehow with our poor Spanish, much laughter and gestures! On arriving at a new town, David would take us for an orientation walk. Trinidad's historic centre is a world heritage site, a beautiful old town with narrow cobbled streets and colonial architecture. We tried the local drink, honey and rum at a cafe. Rum is THE drink in Cuba, pretty much everyone drinks rum and you can buy a bottle for 3 USD! Cocktails at a bar (mojitos, cuba libres etc.)range from 1-3 USD. Transport in Trinidad is a mix of horse and cart, tricycles, bikes, old cars and horseback.Very different place to home! We had dinner at our home stay, a great fish dinner, must have been a kilo of fish between us! The casas provide a 3 course dinner, soup, main and dessert for about 8-9 dollars, and they are always huge and very tasty. Went up to the Steps after tea as Gabrielle was keen to do some salsa dancing. It is literally a set of steps with a couple of open air bars +Cuban bands. I tried a salsa dancevery badly) with an Afro-Caribbean mafun!
March 31
We got early to do a steam train ride at 9, the train finally left at 1030! It was a very old train, the trains in Cuba deteriorate and it is hard to get parts, so there were a lot of broken trains in the yards. The trip itself was a bit of a disappointment as the scenery was not great, as a lot of the the sugar cane and vegetation had been burnt off. We decided to get a taxi back to town instead of taking the painfully slow return train trip. It was a hot day so we had some lunch the took another taxi out to the beach, Playa Ancon, which is a long white sand Caribbean beach. Took a snorkelling trip off the beach for for 10 dollars out to the coral reef, the water was deep and clear as crystal- lots of fish and coral. A few hours later, we set off for the car park to find our taxi driver there waiting for us! No extra charge! Found a great bar in town for mojitos, these are popular with tourists - rum, sugar, ice, soda and mint. No such thing as a nip here, the barman pours half a glass of rum, then adds the other ingredients! Back at the casa, Eugenia had prepared a delicious dinner, half a lobster still in its shell, beautifully decorated with pepper and salsa Another huge meal! Went up to the Steps, saw some Afro-Caribbean dancing. Cubans love loud music + salsa, just like Mexicans.
April 1
Our last day in Trinidad, we took a taxi with David to the El Cubano national park and did a short bush walk to the waterfall, only 3.6 km return. Saw lots of birds and swam in waterfall swimming hole, clear and fresh, you could swim into the limestone cave which had stalagmites/tites. Welcome relief on another hot day. Took a stroll around the historic centre in the afternoon and went to the local museum, which had a great view from the tower but the museum exhibits were rather tired and quaint. However the museum was situated in an old mansion which was rather grand. Back for a rest before our group Salsa lesson. Quite complex steps, Blu still has 2 left feet but he gave it a go! Our final dinner here was a group buffet on the roof terrace at the base house. A good chance to catch up with the others as we had all done different day activities. Tomorrow, off to Camaguey.

---

Photos

The Steps, Trinidad
Turns into a music scene at night!

Blu and his wee friend Scarlett
Enjoying our orientation walk