18th December

Today we leave Havana to travel to the central south coast. We now have a Cuban guide called Daniel and a driver Francesco who will be with us for 3 days. We finally leave the city and head onto the 3 lane motorway at 10am, we drive non stop until a bathroom stop is totally at the top of my list! Then we move further towards the coast and pay a visit to a Taino Indian village across the Laguna del Tesoro, a large lake approached by a speed boat through mangrove swamps. An interesting hour, the village was disappointing but the boat trip beautiful on the outward drive and exhilarating on the return as our pilot opened the trottle and flew over the water, through the swamps watching large herons pass over us. 

 
Continuing our journey towards a very late lunch we pass Playas Largo and Giron which are part of the Bay of Pigs, well known throughout the world as the invasion point in 1961 at the height of the Cold War. We stop at a small beach bar for our buffet and then our long day trip continues on through miles of farmlands. Tiny shacks make up villages filled with aged horse and carts, farmers drying rice on the roads and bagging it up to be transported to who knows where. Quite a few homes have a horse tied up outside feeding after, no doubt a hard days work. Most folk if they dont travel by horse, bicycle use a horse and cart. Its a British 19th century picture postcard. Time has stood still for far too long in Cuba. 
 
After a quick but interesting stop to see the main square in Cienfuegos where I decided to take a video, which was an inspired decision as the local band were just tuning up for a teatime performance. So as I walked around filming the beautiful buildings the band played on! Im praying it looks and sounds as good as my memory of it. So we get back to the car and eventually arrive in darkness at the Iberostar, Trinidad at 6.30pm.

The town is approximately as big as Teignmouth, our home town, but 12,000 people live at totally different ends of the scale. Again the town is made up mainly of tiny shacks, each joined to electricity wires, but you hardly see a lamp. The centre of town is quite pretty as the buildings are painted all colours of the spectrum. Trinidad was founded in 1514 and since 1988 is a Unesco World Heritage site. The cobbled streets show how life was in colonial times and not a lot has changed since then. The ladies of the town were frequently seen brushing their part of the streets and the place is kept very tidy considering the amount of roaming stray dogs and horses that are part of everyday life

We spend the next morning with Daniel, informing us about the buildings, people and history before stopping at the Canchanchara bar for one of the famous Rum, honey and lime cocktails accompanied as usual in Cuba by a band playing traditional sounds very loud, but fabulous fun. Then after lunch we decide to head to the local beach and while away a few hours soaking up the sun in the Caribbean, its not a bad life xx