Havana to Trinidad
Trinidad is a lovely 500-year-old city, small and compact but difficult to navigate. On my first morning there, I set off on foot to explore it and got lost almost immediately. Trinidad’s streets were renamed after the revolution. Sometimes, it is the old name on one plaque, then the new name on another. The spelling of the same street name can also be different like Peres and Perez which adds to the confusion. Reniér, the owner of casa El Moro, where I stayed gave me a city map before I left and it helped a lot. Otherwise, I’d have been wandering there until the Doomsday.
The casa and my room were similar to my accommodation in Havana. The rate was the same – $35 per day with breakfast. Breakfast at all casas was excellent and very satisfying – fruit salad, eggs, cheese and ham, bread, butter, jam, coffee or tea with cookies. I did not feel hungry until late afternoon.
Reniér, trying to be helpful and also to make money for himself and his friends, offered me a number of activities in Trinidad. As my budget was tight, I declined horse riding and a trip to the waterfall which disappointed Reniér. I was not a wealthy tourist and therefore was not worth his time and attention. Reniér made one last attempt to benefit from my presence in his casa. He got a package of Cuban cigars out of the refrigerator and, in a whisper, confided to me that he had the best and reasonably priced cigars in town. It looked so funny that I could hardly hold back a smile. After I did not buy cigars from him, Reniér mostly ignored me during my stay unlike Amay in Havana who was sincerely caring at all times. I later met a British couple who did both horse riding and the waterfall. They said I did not miss anything by not going there.
Trinidad is not on the coast. Going to the beach requires taking the bus which I did not do either. Wandering around the town, admiring the old buildings and watching how Cubans went about their everyday lives was far more interesting.
Food was inexpensive and bland. Rice, beans, a couple of tomato slices for salad, overcooked fish or meat that tasted the same anywhere I ate. There was a good selection of products in the local supermarket but probably not affordable for ordinary Cubans. I hardly saw stores that sold clothes and other goods. All this was a sad reminiscence of the Soviet Union at the end of the 1980s. The people, however, were different. Cubans are fun-loving, friendly and easy going despite these difficulties. Live music and dancing were almost everywhere I went.
Some women approached me on the streets of Trinidad as I was obviously a foreigner and asked if I could give them things like a hair brush, skin lotion, a painkiller and even a pen. I shared what I had wishing that I had thought of bringing more stuff like this to give away.
The most surprising thing about Trinidad was its cleanness. There were no trash dumps typical for third world countries. The locals washed the pavements, they even swept the soil sediment along the curb and packed it in plastic bags that were later picked up by trash removal. Check the photos above one more time and you will see no litter anywhere.
The rooms were also kept clean. First-floor windows were open and it was easy to peer inside. Everything was neat and in order regardless of how poor the room looked, with peeling paint and the furniture that in other places of the world would be called antique. However, here it was a treasured possession that was hard to replace.
“Poor but neat” as they say. The premises look astonishingly well preserved and good decorated. It seems the locals enjoy good living or as good as one can under the circumstances!
Cubans do their best, that’s true, but so many of them leave the country in search of better life.