Trinidad

  Trinidad, Cuba
Sunday, November 19, 2006

Ahhh..... Trinidad...

When we arrived into Trinidad... there was... wait for this.... 60, YES that's a Six and a Zero, people waiting for the tourists to come off the bus. They were ALL trying to get people to "their" Casa. We just took our backpacks off the bus and sat down watching the commotion for 20 minutes. Once things had settled down, we sent Sarah out to scout around for a place to live.

Somehow or other we decided to stay at a place that, from the outset, was dodgy.... first off they tried to overcharge, then they changed the price and then changed it again.... we should have smelt a rat!!! The second we were in the door, the guy was into our room asking if we were eating in the Casa, we said, "hang on matey, we've only just arrived, give us a chance, but we'll have breakfast in the morning", he was persistant about the dinner though! Eventually, we just snuck out and ate out in the town. Next morning however..... BIG DRAMA!!!!

No sooner than we were finishing up our breakfast at 10.30AM, the conversation goes as follows....... (please allow for some poetic licence):

Guy in house : "you eat dinner here tonight ?".
Us: "hang on a feckin second bucko, we haven't even swallowed the last bit of manky omlette you've given us... .we''ll let you know about 1pm or so, by the way can we please stay for another 2 nights, tis Sarah's birthday tomorrow!"
Guy: "are you going to eat here ?" (being pushy)
Us: "we don't know yet... can we stay another 2 nights or not ?"
Guy: "you don't eat here... get out.... " (getting aggressive)
Us: "No problemo there pal.... you are a muppet anyway!!!!!"

Packed our packs and left the house. For any of you going there the place NOT to go is "Casa Yury"... yer man is a proper bollocks and don't go near him. Anyway..... we found the best place in Trinidad... Gustavo's gaff....  old colonial house, complete with rocking chairs n a lovely patio.

Now...

02 The streets of Trindad turn into a river

Trinidad is a lovely town, with lovely cobbled streets and old colonial buildings. However, and this is a big HOWEVER, the place is riddled with tourists and also riddled with Cubans on EVERY street corner pestering you to eat in their house... "Lobster my fren, lovely lobster", or else trying to sell you cigars or a ride off a donkey, sorry.... on a donkey!! It gets a bit frustrating after a while, when you have to say "No Grassyass" about 12 hundred million times in the space of 200 metres!! The town itself has very few actual restaurants and there are only 1 or two private restaurants (called Paladars), speaking of Paladars, we found one on our last night in Trinidad that has to be one of the bestest restaurants in the whole of Cuba.. tis called Sol y Son, for any of you folks who may be going there... highly recommended!

04 Sarah gets her birthday pressie

Next up... Sarah's birthday.... November 17!
First off, she got her birthday pressie from me.... a homemade card, made painstakingly slowly each time she was in the bathroom, and a wooden carving of a man with a double bass (for those of you that don't know, Sarah used to play the double bass). We had to share the birthday breaksfast with others.... wanted some privacy... grrrr!!!!! We then packed up our stuff and headed off to the beach.... kool beach near Trinidad called Playa Ancon... really nice!  After the beach, we freshened up, and went out for din din's.

06 Sarahs birthday dinner

Dinner was absolutely AWESOME!!! First we got an entire section of the restaurant to ourselves, the waiter dimmed the lights.. just for us. Then we got serenaded by the singer and her accompanying guitarist, she was unbelieveable, even sang Happy Birthday to Sarah in Spanish. For dinner we had shrimp for starters followed by lobster, all washed down with a gorgeous bottle of wine. We spent near on 3 hours in the restaurant, it was brilliant, because after the waiter served us the dinner he disappeared for 2 hours.... honestly, we didn't see the chap until we went and asked for the bill. Because we were in a section of our own in the restaurant, they acutally forgot all about us... we should have done a runner!!!! the whole birthday dinner cost us 46 Euros.... for the same dinner at home, you'd be looking at well over 150 Euros. We (Mike and Gustavo) had tried to get Sarah a birthday cake, but no joy. So all she got to do was blow out one candle... ah well...  Happy Birthday to Sarah, Happy Birthday to Sarah!

After the dinner, we did what every single tourist in Trinidad does every single night, we went up to the Casa de La Musica. This is held every night, where they have local bands playing and everybody (well those that can dance) gets up and do the salsa dance thing. There were some people there... they were just incredible, not as good as Mike, but reeeaaal close!!

Not much else to say about Trinidad ... neeeext....