Cienfuegos
Our arrival in Havana had introduced us to one side of tourist life in Cuba - our friendly hosts tried to charge us in pesos convertibles rather than the US dollars we'd signed up to on the room booking web site (a 13 percent surcharge, which we avoided), and we paid our first money-changing taxes (an unavoidable ten percent of whichever hard currency you change from). But our hosts were also happy to organise a taxi to Cienfuegos, where we soon fled to escape the rain, at very little more than the bus fare for door-to-door service and a two hour shorter ride.
We stayed with a very warm and friendly old couple in Cienfuegos, with family in Austria and England (I'd thought Cubans had little freedom of travel, but this family were far from unique in maintaining international connections), a sweet sausage dog, and a cleaning woman with a voice like a lark. We found a good pizza restaurant, sat on the dock of the bay for a while, and changed some money out of the "tourist currency" into Cuban everyday money. But perhaps our best discovery was the pool at the Hotel Union, especially as we made friends with the Barber-Mitsushita family on our second visit there (see Heather's entry, below).
Trinidad
After our crappest "air-con luxury" bus ride yet (the wiggly road as much as the cramped bus - and we'd been spoiled by Mexican lujo and executivo class buses), the pretty town of Trinidad welcomed us well. Felipe, our host at our casa particulara had visited London and Essex more than once, spoke British English, and cooked a fine chicken curry. Our previous hosts had arranged the rooms for us - and we hadn't realized we were getting a whole upstairs apartment for our money, complete with fridge, sitting room/diner and patio.
Here we waited out the last couple of days of Cyclone Arlene, whose rain was welcomed by the thirsty Cuban countryside and its anxious farmers. We welcomed the cool, especially with frequent power-cuts leaving us with neither fan nor air-con. We read, played on the gameboy, and made small sallies out to a cafe here, to write postcards, or a biscuit and bottled water shop there. I regretted leaving the camera in the apartment one day when a huge downpour turned the cobbled street outside our cafe into a rushing torrent of brown water.
Trinidad, segun the guidebook, 'doesn't hold tourists well' - if so, then tourism must be slow just now, as we seemed to see more 'real' Cuban street life here than we had so far, and we liked the place. We began to make more use of the non-tourist Cuban currency ( pesos cubanos, or moneda nacional), which Tracie and Anna had encouraged us toward in Cienfuegos. Chocolate biscuits in a 'dollar store' - one convertible (about 25 cubanos). Little home-made guava-filled cake on the street - one cubano - so it's very well worth getting ten or twenty quid's worth if you come to Cuba while they still have two currencies. Transport, accommodation, tourist-aimed restaurants, internet access, tourist activities and 'attractions' all have to be paid for in convertibles, mind you, so no point changing too much into the cheaper currency.
Riding and swimming
At the weekend, we did proper tourist activities - horse-riding, and diving/snorkeling - each organised the night before by our host at a good price, and neither executivo class. On Saturday, we began with a 'five minute walk' (twenty minutes in the heat) to a hacienda at the edge of town.
Here we hopped on bony horses for a 90 minute ride to a national park with a waterfall. Cubans trot a lot (we noticed this around town also), and I got a sore bum.
At the national park, a 'twenty minute walk' (one hour) took us through admittedly lovely forest/jungle (it actually looked like Wales, but hotter), took us to a great swimming spot under a cascada. We weren't the only ones there!
I, for one, was dreading a couple of hours walking and riding back, but the time passed pleasantly enough (gorgeous countryside will do that), and we were soon back at the ranch.
Diving and Snorkeling
Sunday began with an exciting cross-country, back-tracking, police-avoiding drive in a classic American car with our less-than-completely-official diving and snorkeling instructors. The diving instructor had a proper id card - though I hadn't heard of the diving organisation it was from - and the equipment had seen better days. But the parts that are supposed to be air tight kept the water out and the air in, the buckles were tight, and the bits air should flow through did that job OK too, so Rosa and I descended, equipped with camera in the waterproof case we picked up second-hand in Thailand.
I loved it - Rosa got steered a lot by the instructor, which she didn't like (she uses her arms too much when she's nervous, instead of just your legs as is recommended, and he didn't like that), but she liked the coral, the fish, and the octopus whose arm we glimpsed in a little cave just before we surfaced.
The snorkeling was great too, with a reef heading straight out from the shore, but I foolishly took the camera out of its case after the dive, so we didn't get snorkeling photos.
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