Our next two stops in Cuba were Camaguey and Trinidad.
A seven-hour drive from Santiago de Cuba brought us to to Camaguey, which happens to be Cuba's third largest town. If you’ve read the previous posts, you would have guessed that Camaguey is one of Velazquez's original seven settlements in the early-16th century. The town is named after one of the local Indian chiefs, Camaguei. Camaguey was often attacked so the original planners built labyrinthine streets to confuse, and stop, any potential attackers. This town is famous for Tinajones, huge water pots (sometimes more than two and a half metres high) for storing rainfall. These can still be seen outside many houses in Camaguey.
Ok enough about the town’s history. There are number of beautifully-restored squares here - Plaza de Carmen, Plaza de Los Trabajadores, and Plaza Agromonte. The latter was my favourite - it had beautiful buildings all around (including a Casa de la Trova) and a nice coffee shop where one could hang around and watch Cuban life amble by – at its own inimitable pace.
There is a lot of art (paintings especially) that comes out of Camaguey and the city is full of studios of local artists and their (rather colourful) modern art. Since my suitcase was full, I decided not to pick anything up but I couldn’t help imagining how these colourful paintings would look in my house.
At Camaguey I had my first experience in a Coppelia. Before you start getting ideas, a Coppelia is a local ice-cream parlour, one of those few rare places where a tourist can easily spend the local pesos. Local Pesos? Ok, a bit about the dual currency system in Cuba. There are two kinds of pesos – Local Pesos (to be used by Cuban nationals) and Convertible Pesos (called CUCs, mainly to be used by tourists). Crudely put, the former is for necessities and the latter is for luxuries. That was my understanding. The CUC has been in use since 1994 and is treated as equivalent to the USD (which is either not acceptable in Cuba, or has a very high commission attached to it).
Next we went to Trinidad (not to be confused with the country), which is the second most-touristed city in Cuba (after Havana). The town is quite well restored with beautiful pastel coloured buildings and cobbled streets. Almost every house in town seems to be a restaurant-bar or a shop selling souvenirs (trinkets, lace items, and colourful paintings being the most common of souvenirs being sold in Cuba).
On our first day there, I wandered into a nice wee open air bar called 'casa de la musica' (yes, in Cuba everything is music, music is everything). I was the only tourist there and I was pulling the average age down by about 20 but yet again (as is always the case here), I was the worst dancer as people (in different stages of inebriation) were getting up and dancing. I was forced to dance with this geriatric lady who was only about a million times better than me. Then I got talking to his elderly gentleman Julio who turned out to be (surprise surprise) a 'Professore de Salsa'. He was inebriated (naturally) and his English was as bad as my Spanish but we managed to have a beer and Rum-induced conversation for about half an hour (don't ask me about what!).
Later after Dinner, we headed back to the Casa de la Musica where a popular Havana-based rock band was having a concert. Though, there was a fair number of tourists, locals made up the bulk of the crowd and they knew many of his songs. While I did not participate in the sing-alonging and the air-guitaring, I did practice my cigar-puffing skills (A cohiba this time. The most popular brands are Cohiba, Montecristo, Romeo y Julieta). The good thing about a cigar is that you don't inhale so it is (I'm guessing and rationalising) less harmful thank cigarettes. Of course my new friend Julio was there - he had been packing in the rum since afternoon so he was in a pretty 'happy' mood and must have danced with about 20 girls - have to say, that despite the blood in his alcohol, he danced rather well. After all, Cubans have dance in their veins (bad pun!).
The next day we headed to the beach of Ancon (about 14 kms from Trinidad) which was a nice white sandy beach with not too many people around. So it was good to just have a waddle in the picturesque beach (yes, as most of you know, I don't know how to swim).
In the evening we headed off to Casa de la Musica again where an Afro-Cuban dance performance (rather energetic and with drums) was going on. This was followed by yet another band and much dancing (you get the picture of Cuba by now).
There was a 'sugar valley' near Trinidad where there were about 114 sugar plantations (in the days of yore). We went to one that has been restored to show tourists what the plantations were like. It was a nice half-day spent at the plantation surrounded by lush-green rolling hills. However the best part of this excursion was our taxi - a red-and-white Fairlane'500. A real beauty.
Sigh…
A seven-hour drive from Santiago de Cuba brought us to to Camaguey, which happens to be Cuba's third largest town. If you’ve read the previous posts, you would have guessed that Camaguey is one of Velazquez's original seven settlements in the early-16th century. The town is named after one of the local Indian chiefs, Camaguei. Camaguey was often attacked so the original planners built labyrinthine streets to confuse, and stop, any potential attackers. This town is famous for Tinajones, huge water pots (sometimes more than two and a half metres high) for storing rainfall. These can still be seen outside many houses in Camaguey.
Ok enough about the town’s history. There are number of beautifully-restored squares here - Plaza de Carmen, Plaza de Los Trabajadores, and Plaza Agromonte. The latter was my favourite - it had beautiful buildings all around (including a Casa de la Trova) and a nice coffee shop where one could hang around and watch Cuban life amble by – at its own inimitable pace.
There is a lot of art (paintings especially) that comes out of Camaguey and the city is full of studios of local artists and their (rather colourful) modern art. Since my suitcase was full, I decided not to pick anything up but I couldn’t help imagining how these colourful paintings would look in my house.
At Camaguey I had my first experience in a Coppelia. Before you start getting ideas, a Coppelia is a local ice-cream parlour, one of those few rare places where a tourist can easily spend the local pesos. Local Pesos? Ok, a bit about the dual currency system in Cuba. There are two kinds of pesos – Local Pesos (to be used by Cuban nationals) and Convertible Pesos (called CUCs, mainly to be used by tourists). Crudely put, the former is for necessities and the latter is for luxuries. That was my understanding. The CUC has been in use since 1994 and is treated as equivalent to the USD (which is either not acceptable in Cuba, or has a very high commission attached to it).
Next we went to Trinidad (not to be confused with the country), which is the second most-touristed city in Cuba (after Havana). The town is quite well restored with beautiful pastel coloured buildings and cobbled streets. Almost every house in town seems to be a restaurant-bar or a shop selling souvenirs (trinkets, lace items, and colourful paintings being the most common of souvenirs being sold in Cuba).
On our first day there, I wandered into a nice wee open air bar called 'casa de la musica' (yes, in Cuba everything is music, music is everything). I was the only tourist there and I was pulling the average age down by about 20 but yet again (as is always the case here), I was the worst dancer as people (in different stages of inebriation) were getting up and dancing. I was forced to dance with this geriatric lady who was only about a million times better than me. Then I got talking to his elderly gentleman Julio who turned out to be (surprise surprise) a 'Professore de Salsa'. He was inebriated (naturally) and his English was as bad as my Spanish but we managed to have a beer and Rum-induced conversation for about half an hour (don't ask me about what!).
Later after Dinner, we headed back to the Casa de la Musica where a popular Havana-based rock band was having a concert. Though, there was a fair number of tourists, locals made up the bulk of the crowd and they knew many of his songs. While I did not participate in the sing-alonging and the air-guitaring, I did practice my cigar-puffing skills (A cohiba this time. The most popular brands are Cohiba, Montecristo, Romeo y Julieta). The good thing about a cigar is that you don't inhale so it is (I'm guessing and rationalising) less harmful thank cigarettes. Of course my new friend Julio was there - he had been packing in the rum since afternoon so he was in a pretty 'happy' mood and must have danced with about 20 girls - have to say, that despite the blood in his alcohol, he danced rather well. After all, Cubans have dance in their veins (bad pun!).
The next day we headed to the beach of Ancon (about 14 kms from Trinidad) which was a nice white sandy beach with not too many people around. So it was good to just have a waddle in the picturesque beach (yes, as most of you know, I don't know how to swim).
In the evening we headed off to Casa de la Musica again where an Afro-Cuban dance performance (rather energetic and with drums) was going on. This was followed by yet another band and much dancing (you get the picture of Cuba by now).
There was a 'sugar valley' near Trinidad where there were about 114 sugar plantations (in the days of yore). We went to one that has been restored to show tourists what the plantations were like. It was a nice half-day spent at the plantation surrounded by lush-green rolling hills. However the best part of this excursion was our taxi - a red-and-white Fairlane'500. A real beauty.
Sigh…
