I'm sorry but you'll have to excuse a little latina cheese in this blog post but I think I found my spiritual homeland in Cuba's Trinidad. For seasoned Cuba travellers, Trinidad is said to have become too touristy but for little lone me looking for a beautiful spot to unwind by day and wind up again at night, it was the perfect 6 day hang out... once i got there, I couldn't bring myself to leave.
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| With thanks to http://www.joelcarillet.com |
The first morning that I arrived, I got up and went for a walk in the town. I had driven in with a private taxi driver by night in the pitch black so I had no idea what was waiting for me. On that morning, I used my favourite solo-traveller photography technique of shooting from the hip to capture my surroundings. This has a double benefit of 1. not looking like a tourist - if you keep your camera half-concealed, and 2. Getting great shots of people's faces when they don't think they're being watched. It has also lent a jaunty angle to all my pictures here, so let's say that's deliberate...
Where to stay: Casa Colonial
I had the pleasure of chancing upon one of the nicest and oldest families running a casa particular in Trinidad. I can't recommend it enough - I paid the equivalent of £15 per night including a freshly prepared breakfast and the family will offer you dinner every night too if that takes your fancy. Every single detail was infused with scratched and worn-away colonial grandeur from the faded colour on the walls through to the long shadows falling across the courtyard in the morning. This felt like entering another era every single time I stepped into the cool, stone reception room out of the hustle of the streets.
Trinidad is a stunning town famous for its colonial architecture, ceramics factory and outdoor dance floor. The best salsa bands in the whole of Cuba pass through here weekly any time of the year. I was there as they neared high season so was treated to spectacular live music almost every night of the week. If you're looking for salsa lessons during the day, there are plenty of brilliant teachers to choose from. If like me, you're saving salsa for the night time, then you'll probably be heading to the beach. And what a gorgeous beach it is...
A lot of people think that Varadero is the best beach in Cuba because of its once peaceful sands but I beg to differ. Varadero and the Cayos are all white sanded, cordoned off tourist only areas where salsa is confined to hotel bar sleaze and most hotels are all-inclusive. Trinidad's beach - Ancon - on the contrary is a gorgeous, uncultivated stretch of sand. There are a couple of hotels at one end which have little beach bars spilling out of them, serving bad burgers and good mojitos. Other than that, you can walk up the stretch of sand and see mostly trees and not much else. I think this beach has everything you could wish for..
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| With thanks to http://www.joelcarillet.com |
One day, I was flagging down a taxi to go to the beach, when two little paws wrapped themselves around my leg and a little nose prodded me. I looked down to see a street dog that I had met the night before starting imploringly up at me. Estrella (as I called her from then) was asking to go to the beach. It didn't take much to persuade my lovely taxi driver to take her with me. That face... when we got to the beach, it was clear she had never seen the sea before. We hung out for the day and right at the end of it, she walked over to the shore as the sun was setting and watched the sun go down. Totally mesmerised. At the end of our day, I took her back to Trinidad where she slept outside my apartment for a couple of nights before disappearing back into a pack of passing street dogs after escorting me to the nightclub up in the caves for the last time. I miss her. 
At sundown each day, I would go back to my apartment room for a few hours before grabbing a light bite and taking myself to 'The Steps' to dance.
This is Trinidad's main square - a green and peaceful colonial quadrant, crowned with the town's church. In this windy, hilly little place, sounds stay trapped in the corners they come from so as you enter the square and walk towards the church at night the music seems to kick in all at once. As you walk round the church to the right you'll see the stairs with the stage set up for the live salsa bands and the packed, rough outside dance floor filled with chaotic dancers: old, young, graceful and less graceful. The frenzy is surrounded by tables of people drinking £1 mojitos and smoking cigars, watching the scene unfold in front of them. This was my scene where I danced from nine to midnight every night before heading up into the hills to The Cave nightclub, which is a must-do as it's the biggest nightclub actually inside a natural cave in the world.
Two more Cuba blog posts to come so watch this space...
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