Viva La Revolucion... (pt 2 of 3)

T r i n i d a d

After enjoying the hustle and bustle of Havana, it was time to get into the cuban country-side. So we headed down to the historic old town of Trinidad via the city of Cienfuegos (just past the bay of pigs...)

Apart form old cars, Cuba is famous for two things: Cigars and Rum.
... and this is rum country. Well, more specifically, this is sugar country - from which the rum is made...and they don't let you forget it either. Where ever you go, rum's $2 a bottle and you're more likely to be able to get a mojito than a coke. It catches up to you after a while...

Guide books tell you that Trinidad is a museum in itself - and they're kinda right the hundreds of tourists visiting the 500-year-old city find Spanish colonial architecture and cobbled stone streets that mark the tiny city as one of the country’s greatest attractions. Only a few square blocks in size, historic Trinidad is famous for its lovely, cobblestone streets, pastel coloured houses with elaborate wrought-iron grills, as well as majestic palaces and plazas. This area is a world heritage site and cars are banned, so it's nice to be able to just walk around.

A church at the Plaza Mayor
There's no shortage of locals enjoying cigars...
no cars means a nice quite ride through town

Apart from the big resort areas (which we didn't go to) Cuba doesn't actually have that many "hotels" - There's a few government run places and a few big chains are moving in (especially in Havana), but the main place to stay are the hundreds of casa particulars (private houses) in towns all over the country.

It's exactly as it sounds - you stay at someone's house! Ever since the special period in the '90's when the economy fell into a massive hole after the split of the USSR, cubans have been looking for ways to earn additional income by playing to their strengths. If you're a good cook - your house is a restaurant, if you make coffee - sell it out the front window, if you have a spare room - you're house is a hotel... Now it's fully legalised and houses actually do extensions to create more room for their "casa" to generate business. We stayed at a place where we had a room on the top floor and an outdoor spot for meals - it was awesome!! all for $20-25 a night.

We'd originally only planned to stay in Trinidad for a few days, but there was so much stuff to do just outside town we ended up staying longer. The Topes de Collantes is a national park in the mountains behind the town where the only way to get in is on the back of an old russian military transport. We took a ride with a cool bunch of italian, brittish, dutch and french folk and went for a hike to one of the waterfalls...

swimming pool

being on the coast, there were plenty of beaches to lie on and a few reefs to dive. Unfortunately many of the reefs got trashes by hurricane Gustav last season, but we still had fun. We took a catamaran out to this tiny little atoll to do some snorkelling - awesome.


We'd planned to do something for Christmas, however we hadn't realised that it doesn't really exist here...

Appartenly, following the declaration of Cuba as an atheist nation, Christmas was removed from list of holidays of Cuban calendar in 1969 when Fidel Castro decided it was interfering with the sugar harvest festival. Cuban authorities banned the public display of Christmas trees and nativity scenes, other than in places frequented by tourists, such as hotels. But in 1997, President Castro restored the holiday to honor, in the honor of the visit of Pope John Paul II in the island. So while the island is quite catholic - there ain't no Santa here, baby...

Despite all that we had a great time drinking Crystal (beer) by the sea