Trinidad, Cuba
I was up at 6am and quickly put my clothes on. A phone call announced there was something wrong with our taxi and we were going to have to walk to find one. At the waterfront there were hardly any around, but lots of buses.
We got one in the nick of time and went to the bus station, arriving at 6.50am, we were meant to be there at 6.30! We were rushed through the process and onto the bus, shortly later it left. It was meant to be a 5 hour ride, it took closer to 7. The road was flooded at one point, we stopped at a beautiful roadside cafe with toilets with swing doors you could see over. The aircon also stopped working about three hours in.
Finally, we made it to Trinidad! Another cute colonial town with cobblestones and pastel buildings, and an awful lot of horse and carts. It was scorching hot and our street didn’t seem to show up on the map. A man pointed us the ‘right way’ – actually the longest way possible. Our casa was a mint green, tall and narrow three story building.
We checked in, which involved another very long Spanish conversation, most of which went completely over my head. I got changed but they were still cleaning the other’s room. We walked around the corner and went into the first restaurant we saw – El Dorado. It was actually pretty good by Trinidad standards. I had a Cubano sandwich – pork, sauces and cheeses. The other two went back to the casa to shower,
I went for a walk around town by myself. It was absolutely boiling, by the time I got back my shirt had huge sweat patches on it and I only walked slowly on the flat for about 30 minutes. I looked at all the colourful one story houses, these ones painted in pastels. There were horse and carts on the road, still in practical use. Old motorbikes and cars were more than token tourist ones here, and occassionally a huge tourist coche rumbled into town looking very out of place. The main plaza has a big English-style garden in it with urns and sculptures. There is a massive church and another with a very high bell tower.
When I returned, after circling the little town twice, I lay naked in the airconditioning. My room is a mint theme and has a fake window, plus a wooden slated one into the kitchen. The casa owner returned to turn on the hot water. We went to the ‘supermarket’ – the closest one we’ve seen to the rest of the world. There were aisles and most types of food except fresh vegetables.
We went out for a drink around 5pm to try the local tipple – canchanchara. It’s rum, lemon juice, honey and ice. It was very concentrated and came in a little terracotta bowl. It tastes like cough syrup and would probably be great for a sore throat. We had it on a rooftop terrace just away from the main plaza.
I read out some Lonely Planet recommendations for dinner – it’s very hard to know where to go without internet and everyone you ask selling you their friend’s restaurant! We walked up to Vista Gormet, a fancy restaurant on a hill overlooking the town. We saw sunset and we drank cocktails and I ate ‘pineapple sauce’ chicken – basically sweet and sour chicken.
On our way home we passed the main square where a hundred or so tourists were all sitting, staring at their phones in the dark. This was a wifi zone. I asked two girls where they bought the wifi, turns out you need to buy from an office. I went to ask a restaurant waiter where the office was, he asked if had the exact change while not meeting my eye – looking into the distance. I scraped together $2.50 in 5 cent coins and handed it over. He glanced around once more before pulling a card out of his apron and slipping it into my hand. I honestly felt like he could have just sold me drugs from the way this exchange happened. Then I went to join the rest of the wifi junkies on the plaza steps and tried to connect. The internet was so slow, it took almost 20 minutes to connect and another ten to load my emails.
I woke up around 6.30 in my pitch black, windowless, mint green room when the fan clicked off with no notice. Luckily, I went back to sleep until 8.30 when the casa owner turned up to make breakfast in the kitchen. Cuba is two hours behind Costa Rica so we’re still adjusting to the time difference.
Breakfast was another lavish affair of coffee, fruit juice, fruit platters, eggs, meat, cheese, bread, banana bread and an entire birthday cake for Joao who was turning 36 today! We ate a lot, as she left to make a second coffee, her hermano (brother) came into the house and proceeded to chat in Spanish for about half an hour while we wanted to eat the cake. Naturally, he was selling us tours. We were going to the beach on the bus, but he could take us for $14 total. We took him up on that.
Around 10am we went in his ancient blue car, rattling down the cobblestones towards the coast. Latin music blasted into our hears and Joao had to listen to him talk non-stop in Spanish for the entire journey. Luckily, we couldn’t hear in the back.
The beach had a ridiculously austere Soviet-style hotel painted orange, red and blue called Hotel Amigo. But past that, there was white sand, turquoise ocean, palm trees and little cabanas lining the shore. We found a nice spot past a non-stop beach party blasting music, packed with Cuban families and entire bottles of rum everywhere.
We literally spent the day lying in the shade of the cabana, refusing drinks offered to us every 10 minutes from vendors. I swam a few times, but the wind picked up and started washing loads of seaweed into the shore. It kept us nice and cool on the sand.
We drank fresh coconuts and had a ‘sandwich’ for lunch – stale toasted bread with a slice of something reseambling pork and plastic cheese in it.
We left at 5.30pm, our driver had returned to pick us up. We were all sporting a bit of sunburn, the breeze had hidden the intensity of the sun.
For Joao’s birthday we drank the two mini bottles of cachaca I had bought in Paraty, Brazil with some Sprit and limes, delivered by the Casa owner. We sat up on the terrace as the sun went down over the terracotta rooftops. Lots of other people clustered up on their rooves.
We had dinner at a little restaurant filled with bougainvilla and fairy lights, tucked in behind the wifi-stairs of the main plaza. Music boomed from ‘la casa de la musica’ above us – an open street party. Joao had an enormous lobster, I had seafood and tomato pasta, which also contained a lot of meaty lobster and prawns. After this, we went to ‘the cave’. I had no idea what to expect, but as we wound up through the streets to the top of the hill, it was apparent there were a lot of other people heading there.
We arrived at an actual natural cave, with bouncers outside. They ushered us in and we paid the cover charge of $5. We walked down into a huge natural cavern, this was where the toilets were. The ground was tiled but saturated from water dripping off the cave roof. Then we went down another level through a narrow tunnel and came out in a even bigger, two tiered club playing Latin top 40. There were heaps of people sitting around, waiting for something. Maybe it was a show, but it never happened, the dancefloor just crowded up with confused tourists and salsa-ing locals. It was pretty amazing. We walked home around 1am.
I woke up in my own dark cave, expecting it to be about 6am again. It was actually 8.45 and I heard someone come in for breakfast. It was the father of the two girls in the pictures of the salon. He made breakfast as I explained I was tired from dancing the night before, in very poor Spanish.
Unfortunately, my tummy was a bit upset from something I’d eaten or drunk the night before. I decided to skip the waterfall walk the owner’s brother had sold us.
While I lay in my room practising my Spanish app, the mother of the two girls came in and cleaned the apartment. I said I had eaten bad food, I hope she didn’t think I meant the huge breakfast her esposo had prepared.
My Spanish has improved a lot in understanding, I can now follow some conversations and usually understand what Joao is saying because he speaks slower than the locals. But now I know what I can’t say, and I find it frustrating not being able to reply correctly.
I spent most of the day living like the locals, hanging out of their front windows watching the street go by during the heat of the day. There were rocking chairs everywhere and big portraits of children on the wall. Some smoked cigars, some watched the football world cup, some played dominoes, lots just stared into the street talking to neighbours.
I did some yoga, tried watching Cuban TV – a very long propaganda news piece on Donald Trump, and an even longer one of father’s day (today). They know how to talk! I walked down the bakery and ate a very subpar pastry and some cold water. The staff looked annoyed I interrupted their world cup viewing. I was going to walk to the cornerstore next but it was just too hot and my tummy was cramping! I ended up back in the window and finished two books on my tablet.
Susie and Joao came home, they went out for lunch and we planned to go to La Boca (a neighbouring seaside village for dinner). Our driver took us there, well he took us to his friend’s restaurant in a shanty town somewhere in the middle of Trinidad and La Boca. The staff glared at us, there were no windows. We insisted on going to Caribe Grill on the seaside. We actually ended up at Cari-B Grill – an intentional confusion if there ever was one!
This place was beautiful, right on the crystal clear water as the sun was going down.
Unfortunately it was a public restaurant (government owned versus private), so there were screaming families, uninterested staff and USA top 40 blasting off someone’s cellphone. They had run out of ice so we enjoyed a ‘sprite’ - actually a cheap Cuban version. I ordered the snapper for $14 – suspicious of the fish fillet being only $8 although both of these are expensive in comparison to everywhere else. An entire fish, head, scales and all came out. In fairness, it was very delicious and fresh. The standard public restaurant soggy overcooked beans and carrots, and rice and beans accompanied it. We finished dinner and the restaurant closed at 8pm. Our driver was going to pick us up at 9. We sat on the beach, standing in the warm water, admiring the crabs and coral and the sunset. Then around 8.30 a swarm of mozzies arrived. We spent the next 30 minutes counting down the seconds, swatting our legs and arms while the restaurant staff counting the change sprayed fly spray on each other. They told us it was not for skin as they continued to blast it over each other.
Our driver finally arrived and we zoomed home via La Boca, dodging huge crabs on the roads around the mangroves. There were tonnes of potholes, so between those and the crab swerving I felt like I was on a safari, bouncing around in the little 60s car with it’s bench seat and no seatbelts. We ended the day in the plaza, getting our wifi fix. The salsa band was going strong and it finally cooled down enough to not feel like you were sweating constantly.
We got one in the nick of time and went to the bus station, arriving at 6.50am, we were meant to be there at 6.30! We were rushed through the process and onto the bus, shortly later it left. It was meant to be a 5 hour ride, it took closer to 7. The road was flooded at one point, we stopped at a beautiful roadside cafe with toilets with swing doors you could see over. The aircon also stopped working about three hours in.
Finally, we made it to Trinidad! Another cute colonial town with cobblestones and pastel buildings, and an awful lot of horse and carts. It was scorching hot and our street didn’t seem to show up on the map. A man pointed us the ‘right way’ – actually the longest way possible. Our casa was a mint green, tall and narrow three story building.
We checked in, which involved another very long Spanish conversation, most of which went completely over my head. I got changed but they were still cleaning the other’s room. We walked around the corner and went into the first restaurant we saw – El Dorado. It was actually pretty good by Trinidad standards. I had a Cubano sandwich – pork, sauces and cheeses. The other two went back to the casa to shower,
I went for a walk around town by myself. It was absolutely boiling, by the time I got back my shirt had huge sweat patches on it and I only walked slowly on the flat for about 30 minutes. I looked at all the colourful one story houses, these ones painted in pastels. There were horse and carts on the road, still in practical use. Old motorbikes and cars were more than token tourist ones here, and occassionally a huge tourist coche rumbled into town looking very out of place. The main plaza has a big English-style garden in it with urns and sculptures. There is a massive church and another with a very high bell tower.
When I returned, after circling the little town twice, I lay naked in the airconditioning. My room is a mint theme and has a fake window, plus a wooden slated one into the kitchen. The casa owner returned to turn on the hot water. We went to the ‘supermarket’ – the closest one we’ve seen to the rest of the world. There were aisles and most types of food except fresh vegetables.
We went out for a drink around 5pm to try the local tipple – canchanchara. It’s rum, lemon juice, honey and ice. It was very concentrated and came in a little terracotta bowl. It tastes like cough syrup and would probably be great for a sore throat. We had it on a rooftop terrace just away from the main plaza.
I read out some Lonely Planet recommendations for dinner – it’s very hard to know where to go without internet and everyone you ask selling you their friend’s restaurant! We walked up to Vista Gormet, a fancy restaurant on a hill overlooking the town. We saw sunset and we drank cocktails and I ate ‘pineapple sauce’ chicken – basically sweet and sour chicken.
On our way home we passed the main square where a hundred or so tourists were all sitting, staring at their phones in the dark. This was a wifi zone. I asked two girls where they bought the wifi, turns out you need to buy from an office. I went to ask a restaurant waiter where the office was, he asked if had the exact change while not meeting my eye – looking into the distance. I scraped together $2.50 in 5 cent coins and handed it over. He glanced around once more before pulling a card out of his apron and slipping it into my hand. I honestly felt like he could have just sold me drugs from the way this exchange happened. Then I went to join the rest of the wifi junkies on the plaza steps and tried to connect. The internet was so slow, it took almost 20 minutes to connect and another ten to load my emails.
Getting sunburnt at the beach
I woke up around 6.30 in my pitch black, windowless, mint green room when the fan clicked off with no notice. Luckily, I went back to sleep until 8.30 when the casa owner turned up to make breakfast in the kitchen. Cuba is two hours behind Costa Rica so we’re still adjusting to the time difference.
Breakfast was another lavish affair of coffee, fruit juice, fruit platters, eggs, meat, cheese, bread, banana bread and an entire birthday cake for Joao who was turning 36 today! We ate a lot, as she left to make a second coffee, her hermano (brother) came into the house and proceeded to chat in Spanish for about half an hour while we wanted to eat the cake. Naturally, he was selling us tours. We were going to the beach on the bus, but he could take us for $14 total. We took him up on that.
Around 10am we went in his ancient blue car, rattling down the cobblestones towards the coast. Latin music blasted into our hears and Joao had to listen to him talk non-stop in Spanish for the entire journey. Luckily, we couldn’t hear in the back.
The beach had a ridiculously austere Soviet-style hotel painted orange, red and blue called Hotel Amigo. But past that, there was white sand, turquoise ocean, palm trees and little cabanas lining the shore. We found a nice spot past a non-stop beach party blasting music, packed with Cuban families and entire bottles of rum everywhere.
We literally spent the day lying in the shade of the cabana, refusing drinks offered to us every 10 minutes from vendors. I swam a few times, but the wind picked up and started washing loads of seaweed into the shore. It kept us nice and cool on the sand.
We drank fresh coconuts and had a ‘sandwich’ for lunch – stale toasted bread with a slice of something reseambling pork and plastic cheese in it.
We left at 5.30pm, our driver had returned to pick us up. We were all sporting a bit of sunburn, the breeze had hidden the intensity of the sun.
For Joao’s birthday we drank the two mini bottles of cachaca I had bought in Paraty, Brazil with some Sprit and limes, delivered by the Casa owner. We sat up on the terrace as the sun went down over the terracotta rooftops. Lots of other people clustered up on their rooves.
We had dinner at a little restaurant filled with bougainvilla and fairy lights, tucked in behind the wifi-stairs of the main plaza. Music boomed from ‘la casa de la musica’ above us – an open street party. Joao had an enormous lobster, I had seafood and tomato pasta, which also contained a lot of meaty lobster and prawns. After this, we went to ‘the cave’. I had no idea what to expect, but as we wound up through the streets to the top of the hill, it was apparent there were a lot of other people heading there.
We arrived at an actual natural cave, with bouncers outside. They ushered us in and we paid the cover charge of $5. We walked down into a huge natural cavern, this was where the toilets were. The ground was tiled but saturated from water dripping off the cave roof. Then we went down another level through a narrow tunnel and came out in a even bigger, two tiered club playing Latin top 40. There were heaps of people sitting around, waiting for something. Maybe it was a show, but it never happened, the dancefloor just crowded up with confused tourists and salsa-ing locals. It was pretty amazing. We walked home around 1am.
Sick in Trinidad
I woke up in my own dark cave, expecting it to be about 6am again. It was actually 8.45 and I heard someone come in for breakfast. It was the father of the two girls in the pictures of the salon. He made breakfast as I explained I was tired from dancing the night before, in very poor Spanish.
Unfortunately, my tummy was a bit upset from something I’d eaten or drunk the night before. I decided to skip the waterfall walk the owner’s brother had sold us.
While I lay in my room practising my Spanish app, the mother of the two girls came in and cleaned the apartment. I said I had eaten bad food, I hope she didn’t think I meant the huge breakfast her esposo had prepared.
My Spanish has improved a lot in understanding, I can now follow some conversations and usually understand what Joao is saying because he speaks slower than the locals. But now I know what I can’t say, and I find it frustrating not being able to reply correctly.
I spent most of the day living like the locals, hanging out of their front windows watching the street go by during the heat of the day. There were rocking chairs everywhere and big portraits of children on the wall. Some smoked cigars, some watched the football world cup, some played dominoes, lots just stared into the street talking to neighbours.
I did some yoga, tried watching Cuban TV – a very long propaganda news piece on Donald Trump, and an even longer one of father’s day (today). They know how to talk! I walked down the bakery and ate a very subpar pastry and some cold water. The staff looked annoyed I interrupted their world cup viewing. I was going to walk to the cornerstore next but it was just too hot and my tummy was cramping! I ended up back in the window and finished two books on my tablet.
Susie and Joao came home, they went out for lunch and we planned to go to La Boca (a neighbouring seaside village for dinner). Our driver took us there, well he took us to his friend’s restaurant in a shanty town somewhere in the middle of Trinidad and La Boca. The staff glared at us, there were no windows. We insisted on going to Caribe Grill on the seaside. We actually ended up at Cari-B Grill – an intentional confusion if there ever was one!
This place was beautiful, right on the crystal clear water as the sun was going down.
Unfortunately it was a public restaurant (government owned versus private), so there were screaming families, uninterested staff and USA top 40 blasting off someone’s cellphone. They had run out of ice so we enjoyed a ‘sprite’ - actually a cheap Cuban version. I ordered the snapper for $14 – suspicious of the fish fillet being only $8 although both of these are expensive in comparison to everywhere else. An entire fish, head, scales and all came out. In fairness, it was very delicious and fresh. The standard public restaurant soggy overcooked beans and carrots, and rice and beans accompanied it. We finished dinner and the restaurant closed at 8pm. Our driver was going to pick us up at 9. We sat on the beach, standing in the warm water, admiring the crabs and coral and the sunset. Then around 8.30 a swarm of mozzies arrived. We spent the next 30 minutes counting down the seconds, swatting our legs and arms while the restaurant staff counting the change sprayed fly spray on each other. They told us it was not for skin as they continued to blast it over each other.
Our driver finally arrived and we zoomed home via La Boca, dodging huge crabs on the roads around the mangroves. There were tonnes of potholes, so between those and the crab swerving I felt like I was on a safari, bouncing around in the little 60s car with it’s bench seat and no seatbelts. We ended the day in the plaza, getting our wifi fix. The salsa band was going strong and it finally cooled down enough to not feel like you were sweating constantly.
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