We arrived in Trinidad from the bore that was Cienfuegos to be greeted by a beautiful little colonial town, and about 70 Casa owners holding up signs trying to get us to stay at their place. Fortunately, Rita, our lovely old Casa owner in Cienfuegos, had organised a place for us to stay right in the middle of the town with a guy called Rafael (who looked a lot like a famous Republican from Ireland called Brendan Hughes – look him up on Google images or Wikipedia if you don’t know of him, I’m sure you’ll find him there somewhere).
Trinidad is a town on the Caribbean coast of Cuba, and is one of the four or five settlements that the Spaniard Velasquez started building after he ‘discovered’ the island in the 16th century. Rafa’s house is over 300 years old, has fantastically high ceilings at one end (11 metres!) and he lives in it with his mother, his daughter, and his granddaughter. Rafa is a hardcore capitalist by Cuban standards, because as well as his Casa business, he and his daughter also run a shop from their living room. The shop sells handicrafts and textiles - and like a Casa, the tax on these small shops is huge.
Trinidad was a fantastic place to stay, and is somewhere we would definitely like to go back to again. There is a fair amount to do there: from walking around the cobblestone streets and admiring an absolutely beautiful city (and we’re not usually the type to admire a city!), to going to the beach, to doing hikes through the surrounding forests and National Parks. We ended up staying there a week and did everything that there was to offer – including a 6km hike through very steep trails (ask Emma about how good this was) – except horse riding…neither of us fancied walking like John Wayne for a few days afterwards (like in Vinales), so we passed on this opportunity.
As well as all of this, Trinidad is a real mecca for music. Most of Cuba is actually, but Trinidad seemed to have live music everwhere. In all the bars (which were fantastic), to the restaurants, to the side of the roads, to impromptu jam sessions in cafes (alongside patrons hopping out of their chairs for some impromptu salsa dancing) Cuban music was everywhere. There were even a few places that only seemed to do Cuban music with a Caribbean influence. All in all, a very good place.
The last thing about Trinidad worth mentioning, was the drink – and particularly one called Canchanchara. After Rafa got back to Cuba from working in Eastern Europe, he started working in a bar, and this was one of his favourite drinks. It is a rum based cocktail that is mixed with lemon juice, honey, and has to be one of the best (if not the best) cocktail that we’ve had. Rafa, being the big red-nosed man that he is, liked having a lot of rum in his drink, and Declan (ever the competitor) went drink for drink with him on our first night, and needless to say, ended up juiced.
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