Honeymoon day 135: Havana and Trinidad, Cuba. Our bus to Trinidad is not until 1pm so first of all, we headed to the money changer, housed in a grand old building that was presumably once an international bank, to swap some more Mexican Pesos for CUCs, as well as a few Pesos, and picked up a 10 Peso hotdog from the National food court we had seen on our first day. From there we headed down to a church that had been closed yesterday but was now fortunately open. Like the church closed for renovation, the outside was similarly severe, but this time made of soot-blackened limestone. The interior was similarly plain and severe, albeit with occasional baroque flourishes, carved in a much more oversized and less detailed way, apparently due to the use of unskilled slave labour rather than the stonemasons of Europe. Running out of time, we grabbed a couple more 10 Peso hotdogs for lunch and headed back to the casa to pick up our bags and get a taxi to the bus station. The bus station looked like a 1960s house from the outside and there wasnt much inside either, apart from an area where you dropped off your luggage and disappeared on a conveyor, only to appear again upstairs in the waiting area. Moreover the station didnt have bays for buses, just a drive-through car port type system. Very strange for a national capitols bus station; there must be another reserved for locals somewhere else. While we waited for the bus, we went to the cafe upstairs, appearing reminiscent of a 1960s American diner, for ice cream. Strange thing happened when we visited the toilet, there was a water bottle beside the sink with a label on it and a clear liquid inside. I assumed it was soap so squirted some on my hands (which also annoyingly splashed on my trousers). More annoyingly, I quickly realised this soap was in fact bleach, and the tap didnt work to wash it off my hands or trousers. I tried another toilet, again containing a bottle of bleach but no running water. I indicated to the attendant that I needed to rinse my hands: she showed me to a cupboard with a water tap near the floor, then turned around with a handful of washing powder. Very odd. Kim was next, and on indicating that she wanted to wash her hands, the woman thrust the bleach onto her hands and directed her to the cupboard tap. Were not sure if the lady was a bit potty or just had good intentions, but she got a small tip anyway (tips seem to be a way of life here). The bus left on time and the journey down to Trinidad was uneventful, if rather long: the best part of six hours in total. The scenery on the way down was mostly undulating farm land: lots of sugar cane and paddy fields but without much in the way of livestock. We took the main Autopista, which appeared very reminiscent of a 1950s motorway: wide, with three lanes in each direction, no barrier in the encroaching central reservation other than the odd bush, and with hardly any traffic on it other than the odd classic belching smoke and various vintages of truck. We reached Trinidad in the dark and found a lady waiting for us with a sign with our names, the owner of the casa the previously casa owner had taken on himself to book for us. She had with her a guy with a little wooden trolley who insisted on taking our backpacks and off we went to the casa through the dark, roughly cobbled streets of Trinidad. Having arrived at the casa (Casa del Louisa Maria) and dispatched the trolley boy with a small tip for his unnecessary service, we found the room to be in a modern building out the back, not the old colonial building we had expected. Nonetheless, we settled in, turned down the casa owners offer of dinner (a standard offer in Cuba) and we headed out into the town to find a palador, effectively someones front room converted into a restaurant. The particular palador we found had a lovely colonial front area, complete with period furniture, while the dining area was upstairs on the roof. We had stewed lamb and shredded lamb, with a bottle of surprisingly good Cuban red wine. On the way back we found a roof top bar and had a couple more drinks as we watched the goings-on in the square below. Back at the casa, we found the bed was a bit odd: a chain-mail net beneath the mattress meant the bed bowed downward in the middle making getting comfortable rather difficult and resulting in us pretty much sleeping on top of one another in the middle.
Posted on: Thu, 30 Jan 2014 14:21:48 +0000