Cuba Part 3: Heading east to Trinidad de Cuba

Trinidad da Cuba

How to get out of Havana? The way most tourists get around Cuba is to use the Viazul bus system, a state enterprise aimed squarely at visitors. In Havana, the terminal is a long, expensive taxi ride out of the city centre, and we never made it there. Through an agent at the Hotel Deauville (not as glamorous as the French resort once was), we finally got a shared minibus ride to Trinidad de Cuba. That was the good news. The bad news was that the hotel she booked us into at Trinidad was the VASTLY EXPENSIVE Iberico. Nice building, good breakfasts, unfriendly service and only one bottle of free drinking water on check-in: everything after that paid for. Not generous. Not worth the money. Still, averaging out the daily cost taking into account the dirt-cheap Lincoln, we didn’t feel too hard done by. At least I could catch up on emails (very few places in Cuba have wifi, and not that many have Internet access).

Musicians near the Plaza Mayor, Trinidad de Cuba

On the minibus we met a very nice guy from Curacao and his Dutch girlfriend. He spoke Spanish, obviously, and he was an expert on the ‘casa particular’ system. Cubans with an entrepreneurial streak, a suitable house and the resources to do up their spare rooms with a basic en-suite shower, can rent out to tourists. So that’s how we found accommodation for the rest of the trip, until getting back to Havana. All the owners we met were friendly, spoke just enough English (it varied), put nice breakfasts on the table, and offered dinner too. Sometimes we ate in, sometimes out. Once you’re in a Casa Particular, you can ask the owner to phone up his or her contacts in the next town, and help you book your next stay. It works. Just don’t expect luxury, or quiet, effective air-conditioning.

Urban transport, Trinidad de Cuba

Trinidad de Cuba is the star turn in the guidebooks – small, unspoilt, UNESCO Heritage Site. Sure, it deserves that status. But it turned out that Trinidad was just the best known of a whole series of towns with beautiful historic centres, and to restrict a Cuba trip to Havana and Trinidad because of their guidebook ratings would be a big mistake. We went to eleven places in three weeks, from Havana in the west to Santiago in the east; although they were all different, not one of them was a disappointment. No, we didn’t go to Varadero, which sounds like Hell on Earth. From Trinidad we did day trips by taxi to Sancti Spiritus and the somewhat bigger Cienfuegos, distinctly different from one another but both with bustling town centres packed with historic architecture.

Tower of the Iglesia de Santa Ana, Trinidad de Cuba

Cienfuegos: Catedral de la Purisima Concepcion

Sancti Spiritus: Iglesia Parroquial Mayor del Espiritu Santo