Trinidad and Santiago De Cuba

We arrived in Trinidad later than we expected, at about 8pm, slightly concerned that we didn’t have a place to stay arranged but it looked like there were lots of Casas in the area, so our plan was to knock on some doors and hope they had vacancies. As soon as we got off the bus, we realised that there was definitely going to be no problem- About 10 ladies were gathered at the exit, shouting and waving pictures of their Casa at us in the hope we would go with them. As convenient as this was, we now didn’t know which one to choose, which caused the ladies to become more frantic in their shouts, they had surrounded us and were getting louder and louder to the point we couldn’t distinguish one from the other. At this point I had enough, broke my way through the mob and started walking away from them, I was done with being hassled. But no, this was not allowed, the mob followed us down the road still shouting in our faces. In the end we gave up and picked one at random, which thankfully meant the others dispersed. We were lead to the Casa, where the lady running it had to call her friend to help as she could not read and write to fill in the form with our details.

You work it, clown

...if you are lucky

Trinidad was a lot smaller than we expected, but was very pretty, with colourful colonial buildings and cobbled streets, great for the sounds of the horse and carts passing through, not so wonderful wearing flip flops when its pouring with rain. Unfortunately, the majority of the first day was either overcast or heavy downpours, so after walking around exploring the town, we retreated to a cocktail bar to take advantage of their happy hour.

The 'WiFi zone' in town

...Of course making pup friends along the way

Well, if we must

The following day the weather had cleared up so we took a taxi to the beach about 15km away, Playa Ancon. Although busier than we expected, it was a beautiful place and easy to spend a few hours dozing and enjoying the amazingly clear water.

Taxi to the beach

After some crazy rain

Our next destination was Santiago De Cuba, nearly 500 km away. The bus schedule said it would take 11 hours, and unfortunately there was no night bus option so we would need the full day to travel there. The buses in Cuba are old, and whilst they are not the worst buses we have taken on our trip, it was not a comfortable way to spend a whole day. This also wasn’t helped by the fact Jonno started to have a migraine a few hours into the journey. There was only one stop for food at 11am, and the bus was also slowed down by the rain which at times was so heavy it was impossible to see the road. By the time we reached Santiago De Cuba, it had taken us 13 and a half hours and we were exhausted and hungry, and thankfully instead of the harassment we received in Trinidad, there was one lady offering a Casa which we happily took. The lady did not live in the Casa herself, it was run by a retired man who wanted to hug us a lot, and cooked us some food before we couldn’t keep our eyes open anymore. It also turned out he was extremely patriotic, he told us how strong the Cuban people were, how they would never let America take over and how great all the systems in Cuba were.

'Champion', who always wanted to know what was happening

The faces of the Fatherland

The only option without access to tinder

A lot more rustic than Trinidad

Our first day in Santiago was spent walking around the streets, it’s the second biggest city in Cuba after Havana but a lot more run down. However, there was a lot to see walking down the streets, there is more of an Afro-Carribean population here and while women sit outside their front doors in a rocking chair, the old men hang out in the plazas and play intense games of chess and dominoes. After finding an amazingly cheap cafe ($0.25 for 2 cappuchinos!) we walked to the Moncada Barracks which is now part museum and part school. Although all of the museum was in Spanish, we managed to work out parts of it, with some extra research afterwards. This museum was the site of the first revolutionary attempt made by Fidel Castro on the 26^th July 1953, which was unsuccessful but assisted in gaining more support from the people of Cuba. There were a few more museums we passed but they were all in Spanish which we concluded meant we wouldn’t get that much out of.

There was a mask and costume museum which when we passed, we were told had a dance performance at 4pm which we returned for. Initially there were only 2 other tourists there which felt a bit intimidating, although a few more people arrived later. The performance was good, with some very intense dancing and inevitably we were dragged up to dance too, although at the end after we had given them a tip, they were still trying to pressure us to buy a CD. We walked towards the Malecon, the coastline, but got hassled a lot on the way so didn’t spend long there.

Serious chess game in action

Including lots of macho talk

Pretend capitalist food

Some intense dancing

We were planning on leaving the next day, but the man at the Casa told us the next day there would be big celebrations for the 1^st May and that we should stay and experience it. There was a large gathering at one of the plazas, although by the time we arrived it had dispersed. There was, however, a lot of street parties going on, with music, food stalls and people drinking neat rum from the bottle. We walked around for a while but decided we were not in a day drinking frame of mind so head back towards the centre of the city. We were recommended to visit the nearby cemetery, the burial site of Jose Marti, the first Cuban revolutionary, and also more recently, Fidel Castro. This was a 1km walk from town, but we still had bicycle taxis hassling us along the way to take us, one even cycling all the way there next to us to try and pounce on us on the way out. Fidel Castro’s grave was extremely modest compared to Jose Marti, although this may be temporary place while something more fancy is being constructed.

No sign of a party yet

Found them

Nice boulder for Fidel

..Not so modest for Jose Marti

Jose Marti watching over Jose Marti

A pretty cemetery as cemeteries go

Walking back towards the city

The other place we were recommended was the Castle El Morro, a taxi ride away, which was built to help Santiago defend itself from pirates, although apparently by the time it was finished there were not many pirates left so it was pretty redundant. It was a pretty building though, even though the only attacks it now received were from seagulls dropping crabs in an attempt to break them and get to the meat, so the place looked like a scene from a crab horror movie.

Built to watch out for the real Pirates of the Caribbean

HE SAW TOO MUCH

On our way back from dinner that evening, we were approached by a guy with some very sorry looking dreadlocks, who asked us to talk to him as he wanted to make friends with tourists. He started off by telling us that he was happy in his life, but he didn't like the police and when they detained him and wanted bribe money he said 'FUCKYOUFUCKYOUFUCKYOU' (with rapid middle finger gestures). After various other police hating stories he then asked us if we would buy him some balloons. Umm no. He then stopped talking and just glared at us, so we decided to make our quick exit before we were asked for any other party items.

We had a look at the bus timetable and the buses to our next destination- Baracoa- left at either 7am or the even earlier 2.30am, which didn’t really appeal to us, so we chose to take a collectivo at a more reasonable 8am the following morning.