After satisfying our need for lazy beach days by catching the bus to the resort beach of Playa Ancon. We decided to try a more “Cuban” experience and stay at Playa la Boca. Playa la Boca is a day trip location for the locals of Trinidad as well as for the Cubans staying in the numerous Campismo’s around the beach and the mountains of Trinidad. Basically it’s packed full of Cubans, music and food stalls. Each day a couple of hundred people would be standing in the shallow water, chatting and drinking rum till literally sunset.

We spent our days snorkelling (bad visibility and dead coral, but decent fish life), reading on the garden porch, eating the local 50c pizzas (with food colouring for tomato paste I’m sure) and waiting for dinner. Our casa owners were fantastic cooks and run a great casa. It’s called Hostel Idel and is at the start of the main strip after the main beach.

My flu has almost abated and my brilliant humour is returning as you can see from the title . Trinidad is a really interesting historic town and from what we have seen so far rightfully the most popular tourist destination in Cuba. It has the historic feeling of Habana Vieja, although not as grand, plus the beach is only $4 pesos away!

Our casa was a beautiful old colonial house. We had a huge room with an 8 metre ceiling and our first fridge. Unfortunately the young owners were more focused on the business side of running a casa. When we arrived they tried to force us into paying for breakfast and dinner every night of our stay. We wanted to try some of the restaurants and often don’t eat breakfast so we didn’t agree to that. The vibe wasn’t as good as other places after that encounter. The last night was a highlight when the owners went to Habana and their mum looked after us. She was a really cute old lady that took a shining to Kahlia. She saw us off the next morning with a free piece of milk cake she had baked.

We spent a day walking the old cobbled streets of Trinidad, then a few recovering on the beach, Playa Ancon (pictured above). Some of best music we have heard was also in Trinidad. Each evening there is a free band in an open air plaza where tourists and locals alike come to dance the night away.

We met a German guy & a Swiss guy on the bus to beach who we spent the day and the evening with. They saved my life by having throat lozenges for my sore, inflamed throat. (I am not a whinger! )

When I first started reading about Cuba Trinidad came up time and time again as the place to go. At the time I had thought that Trinidad & Tobago must be attached to Cuba…. it isn’t. But Cuba’s Trinidad has alot to offer; history, beaches & mountains. A one stop tourist destination.

Our next stop was in Vinales, a rural town in western Cuba that produces the best sugar cane in the world (allegedly). Our casa in Habana had organised a casa in Vinales for us and we were met by the son of the owner to direct us there. The bus was mobbed by local women with signs all trying to secure guests to stay at their casas. The son was trying to charge us $20-$25 a night whilst women were shoving signs in our faces for $10-$15 a night. Needless to say not a very good negotiating environment for him.

The casa was a quaint little hacienda with a clay tile roof, in a street of almost identical houses all painted a different pastel. The owners were lovely and great cooks. They barely spoke any English and continually tried to teach us more Spanish (to little avail).

Kahlia had already been sick and I got a horrible flu that lasted 7 days while we in Vinales. The effect was that we started really disliking Cuba because of our illness. Whilst the food at the casa was the best we have had in Cuba it’s repetitive as they don’t have a huge selection of consumer goods. Kahlia was already talking of bailing and heading to Central America after a single week!

Due to my flu we spent most days people watching on the front porch in the hand made rocking chairs. I felt like a proper old-timer. We also went on a horse back tour through the tobacco and sugar cane farms. We stopped at one of the farmers homes setup to sell things to tourists. They made us a coconut mojito and hand rolled us a cigar. Farmers in Cuba have a quota of produce they must provide or sell (not sure which) to the state, the rest if any is then theirs to sell on the open market. The tobacco farmers claim to ferment their tobacco for longer and with flavour aids such as mint and lemon which the state does not. Therefore their cigars are meant to be more flavoursome than the well known brands. The two puffs I had seemed to agree with that, the honey they use as glue also helps (real cigars use maple sap which is flavourless and odourless to glue the wrapper together).

So far Habana has been very close to what I had hoped for. Unfortunately the food is as bad as it is made out to be. The narrow cobbled streets of Habana Vieja are a vibrant mixture of rejuvenated and crumbling antique architecture, filled with equally as colourful and vibrant people. The sheer grandeur of the buildings and neighbourhoods takes you back to a time when Habana was the 4th largest city in the world eclipsing even New York. Their current condition a stark reminder of what decades of isolation has done.

Their isolation has created an amazingly self sufficient country void of most American commercial influence. It’s refreshing to see no fast food chains, Nike stores or blaring consumer related billboards (all billboard room is taken up by pro-revolution ads anyway).

We finally found some cheap local food (single serve pizza’s for 10 national pesos and ice-cream for 3) which heartened the ever budget conscious Kahlia. Her glee was short lived however, as she licked her dirty hands clean of the melting ice-cream and ingested something to make her ill for the next few days.

We visited the Rum factory which was interesting albeit a little rushed. The Patagas cigar factory is really worthwhile (by accident went on the last day before it closed for workers holidays!) seeing all the Cubans rolling the different cigars is really interesting. And we walked and walked, through the museums and old squares, along the sea-wall and tree lined boulevards. Finally we came to stop at the 5-star National Hotel and had our best mojitos of Cuba looking out over the palatial grounds listening to the seemingly ever present sound of live Cuban music.

After 5 months of visiting friends in western countries our guard was down to the games played in tourist areas. Within an hour of wandering we were taken in by a very friendly English speaking a guy on his way to work. The workplace was a dingy bar where we ordered two rum-less mojitos without seeing a menu or asking a price. We ended up with a $6 bill for two half-sized mojitos, which is 3 times more expensive than their full sized intoxicating cousins. A small price to pay for a wake up call.

We landed in Habana, Cuba to thunderous applause from the rest of the passengers. This makes you wonder if safely landing is a rare occurrence. A 30 minute taxi ride later and we were outside La Casona de Obrapia in Habana Vieja (Old Havana).

We had read prior to leaving that Cuba was not like other places we had been. Budget “back-packing” would be harder and planning was required. Like usual we didn’t get around to any of that. Matt’s colleagues had stayed in La Casona previously and recommended Reymond and his casa. However when we had called to book just before leaving the Cayman’s he was full for our required dates (as it turns out some more of Matt’s colleagues had beat us to it). Reymond had agreed to find us something close by.

The other thing we had read before leaving was that casa prices in Habana were pretty similar but quality varied immensely. Whilst Reymonds casa was a beautiful and airy home the casa we were taken to was not. Our room is an add-on atop the building. This gives us a great view from the terrace that acts as a private balcony. However it sorely lacks the charm of other Casa’s in the area. The windows also leaks which we found out by coming home to soggy beds The upside however is the owner is friendly and speaks absolutely no English. It is safe to say our Spanish (which is horrible) is better than her English. Kahlia & I both love this as it forces us into much needed practice.

We checked out one of the highly recommended Casa’s from the guide book (Chez Nous) which is full. It was stunning! Huge room with double bed, sitting rooms full of antiques, a beautiful roof top garden, a tiny dog and a Burmese cat. Depressingly for the same price as our current abode. We have learnt our lesson I hope.