skip to main |
skip to sidebar
Posted On Tuesday, March 17, 2015 at
at
12:28 AM
by Alvin
With great expectations, we headed towards the number one attraction of this island - Trinidad de Cuba and we were not disappointed. Horse-drawn carriages rhythmically pacing up and down the winding sun-baked cobbled-stone alleys, quaint churches from the long-ago era of sugar cane and tobacco colonial settlements, senior villagers sitting outside their front doors greeting old neighbors in the cool of the morning, ah, what a setting ... but hang on, did I also see throngs of tourists with their latest fashion of multi-lens cameras and what about those youngsters wearing Bermuda shorts cycling down to the beach for a bit of romantic fun ? Well, you could not have everything; Trinidad exuded charm and character and with the influx of CUC-paying tourists, also came the ubiquitous tourist trades - long queues outside western restaurants, inflated prices of everything as well as touts of all kinds. All was not lost as we managed to find an interesting and original out-of-the-way Casa Particular ran by a rather-large Senora who cooked up fantastic dinners and allocated us a cool terrace (half finished - photo below) outside our room (spanking new) and we thoroughly enjoyed our stay in this village.
The immense Caribbean heat meant taking life slowly was the order of the day - strolling (slowly) around the pleasant squares of Plaza Mayor and Santa Ana, crawling (slowly) up to the vantage point of Cerro de la Vigia where we had a panoramic view of the whole village and the Caribbean Sea and hiking (slowly) out to the beaches of La Boca and Playa Ancon (30 km !). This slow hike was worth a special mention as we discovered not only pristine beaches with white powdery sand and turquoise blue sea but also amazing salt marsh lands where the sea had receded recently and the remaining wetlands looked amazing in the setting sun; and yeh, Mandy also lost 3 kg afterwards, there's hardly anything left of her ! At the end of the day, we chilled out on our "private" terrace with a soda before our yummy dinner and luckily, the temperature came down during the night and we slept soundly in the cool of the night and felt energised to move on to our next Cuban adventure - the third largest city in Cuba, Camaguey.
