Cuba: A Bridge Between Cultures - Trinidad

Trinidad, Cuba

January 28 - 31, 2013

The drive to Trinidad, farther east along the south coast, was short. Trinidad is a UNESCO World Heritage site known for picturesque colonial-era buildings and cobblestone streets. The area around Trinidad is scattered with sugar cane fields and occasional coffee plantations in the surrounding hills. 

Our guide Ruby and the potter.

While in Trinidad we visited a shop of basket weavers and chatted with the few workers. We saw a ceramic workshop and learned how to mold clay and create various pots.

Iznaga Tower

Out of town we drove high into the hills and spent a few hours at the Manaca Iznaga Sugar Cane Plantation. There we took a train ride through the area and with the help of a guitar player in our car, we celebrated Grace’s birthday.

Grace's birthday serenade.

Back in Trinidad we again scouted for paladares for lunch, and then visited the homes of a few artists including a photographer and a wood carver. In the afternoon we met Santero Ismael who explained at length the intricacies of Santeria, a religion that combines Catholicism and African beliefs brought by slaves in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

Heading high up into the Escambray Mountains north of Trinidad, we visited a coffee plantation and a family of farmers who showed us their home and the process of harvesting and drying the coffee beans.

Tired, at the end of the day, we spent one hour at Ancona Beach, sampling a tourist resort on the bay. That was our one brief brush with Cuba’s tourist industry. Most of the resorts in Cuba, populated chiefly by foreigners, are on the coast west of Havana.

Singing Group at our Hotel La Ronda

 

On leaving for our return drive to Havana, each of us received a bottle of rum as a gift from the hotel. As it is forbidden to take rum, cigars, or other manufactured items from Cuba into the United States, we gave the rum to the various workers at the hotel, which made them very happy!

 Next we head back to Havana for a few more days of exploring.

That's it for now. Grace and Paul