Trinidad part two

Welcome back to our blog! We continue with our story from Trinidad, Cuba – getting caught in the rain, mixing rum with meds, and hitting the famous Playa Ancón.

Last week, we had our first experience with the Cuban medical system. The conditions were a lot better than expected (relief) but also made us come to terms with how bad Elle’s infected motorbike burn was (downer). Having cycled up a mountain, waded through a river and spent 15 hours on a bus with the same dressing, Elle’s leg had gone green and she was now having a spot of trouble walking.

We needed valuable supplies of water [tap water comes straight from the river in Cuba] so Rosie left Elle at the casa to go in search of the local supermarket, getting caught in a warm thunderstorm on the way back. Check out these evocative photos of Trinidad‘s back streets in the rain:

 

N.B. In some supermarkets you have to exchange your bag for a cloakroom number at the entrance, presumably because the price of supermarket goods makes many of them unaffordable to locals. It’s easy to overlook these things and stay in your ‘holiday bubble’, but they are everyday reminders that despite the omnipresent propaganda, all is not well in Cuba. Our casa was the one painted orange in the photo above.

We waited out the storm in a responsible manner.

An hour later, the sun resumed scorching the earth – so we decided to hit the beach. Elle wasn’t in any state to come to the Plaza and find a taxi, so we asked our casa owner if she could bring one round. In typical Cuban fashion, she called her dad, and we happily bundled into the illegal cab – agreeing on the lower price of 10CUC for him to take us, wait there and bring us back [standard practice, but will usually cost you 15-20CUC in a licensed taxi].

We’d read a lot about Playa Ancón. While we took the general view of avoiding tourist spots like the plague, we decided we should probably take a look at one of Cuba’s famous white sand beaches – it couldn’t be as tacky as Varadero!

However, it turned out to be rather a disappointment. Maybe we’re over critical – but the sand was more like light beige, and the sea was far from the crystal clear waters we’d been promised (although perhaps that had to do with the recent storm). There were also several medium sized Soviet-style hotel blocks and rather more Europeans than we’d like to encounter on our Caribbean getaway – even though it was the off-season. And the coco-locos [coconut water with rum and honey, served in the actual coconut] were smaller, less fresh and rather more expensive than in Baracoa. Ok, so they cost 2CUC ($ equivalent), but we’d got used to Baracoa prices.

We deliberately decided not to capture the hotels on camera; they were far too monstrous (follow this link to get an idea). But here’s the beach – nothing to shout about in our opinion.

A little frustrated Elle had got sand in her wound for nothing, we returned to our casa and immediately received a knock on the door – opening it to find Yare (our host) cryptically holding out a telephone. Confused, Rosie put it to her ear – and whose voice was it? None other than Johnny’s, the Baracoan salsa teacher who organised our accommodation in Trinidad, and who had invited Rosie out on a date. Apparently he’d called just to check in on us her.

Come back to our blog again next week to hear about our adventures in Trinidad the next day, and for more photos and tips from Cuba!