Hotel Los Helechos Trinidad

... A really cool bar and met some nice people. <br><br>Starting to get the hang of ´going native´ with the food - can get bread and avocados for lunch for about 10p per person - bargain! Went to a beautiful beach for the day - playa Ancon - proper Carribean sea. Went to El Cubano waterfalls another day, though after a long trek through the forest the falls weren´t that great. Loved Trinidad and stayed for 4 nights.

... 1952. It kind of looked like a Soviet hotel, but built before Castro arrived. It was if he had seen into the future !!! It was nice up there in the mountains, refreshing, no humidity, unlike everywhere else in Cuba !!!<br><br>After dinner, we did our usual jaunt back up to Casa de la Musica where we did our usual mojito and watching people dance. Actually, there really are some good Cuban salsa dancers.<br><br>And then it was over, time to leave and move on to another place.

... day! I scored a rectangular bar from a guy who had a box full on the back of his bicycle. It turned out to be one big "Reeses pieces" without the chocolate. It kind of stuck to the roof of my mouth but after being in the fridge for a bit I kept going back for another bite and it's going down quick. The waxed paper it is wrapped in is sleek with peanut oil and I carried it for 5 blocks in my hands because I dared not put it in my pocket. Bags are a rare commodity here ...

... sold and he replied no, they were used right there. I can understand the way things are when the government takes 90 percent of the profits on production. I can imagine that no matter how much control a government has on things ....it is pretty hard to start counting tomatoes or fish before they get to market. When I see the way the people live here and the general spirit of well being that is apparent in the smiles they wear, I wonder about our "advanced" economy. I am not ...

... That cheap street food is not so exotic either, basically variations on the themes of grease and starch. Fortunately I brought vitamins, because the smoothies and juices aren't enough to compensate for the lack of veggies in the diet, regardless of their status as vitaminicos in South American parlance and habit. I know that 'camp-out' feeling well, vitamin deficiency, not of scurvy magnitude, but enough to blur the edges of my ...

... glances to the left and the right and we were shuffled into someone's home. Boxes of cigars were laid out on a children's bed. All 'kept cool' under a running fan. In the corner of the room was a cot, for one of the men's daughters we soon learned. In the room with Nix and myself was our shady toothless lady, a guy with a golden tooth and a guy looking like a Colombian drug lord with a dark, curly ponytail, and another guy who just too a huge liking to Nix. After running us through ...

... homes, I start to feel myself settling into the idea of traveling again. We meet up in Havana the next evening (and I find a Casa in the old town to move into the day after). I realised at this point that what I found hard was not the language or being a foreigner in a predominantly locals town, but that I couldn't relate. Conversation is limited when you talk to people who seem to just exist on living - you can't talk about jobs, books, films, music, travel or pretty much ...

... y Tahiri. To get there, go past the casa de la Trova, around the corner, up the hill on the right, it´s the pink house at the top. It´s one block south fo Jose Mendoza and where the street meets Ernesto Valdez Munoz. (It didn´t have an address in the guidebook.) Ask for Ricardo. It was simple but comfortable, and cost 30CUC per night. Another point of note: some money was stolen from our bags when we checked them with Viazul, so a word of warning.

... made are capped. Because of this, it is important to always have your rooms rented, hence the desperation at the bus station of people trying to entice tourists to stay at their homes. A young girl caught our attention and started showing us pictures of a nice double room. Tired and hot, we followed her to 'Casa Martha's' Martha, the woman of the house showed us our room. It was clean and comfortable so we took it. Most ...

... fussing, it's hot and windy, and she wants to leave. In the rush to get going, I have no chance to cash my big bill or find out transport options. I hear the bus to town is leaving and we hurriedly pack and leave. Our rushed retreat results in a hot, crowded local bus, for which we have insufficient money (the driver finds it funny when I ask to pay with pesos). If we weren't hot, stressed and harbouring whiny children, I'd enjoy this ride. We're the ...