Day 9. 11.4.16. Cienfuegos to Trinidad. LSCT day # 5.

7.30 for breaky at our Casa, the other 3 ladies walked from theirs to ours. Same fruit, pineapple juice, scrambled eggs, coffee, warm bread, butter and guava jam.

Jeannie, Margot, Glenda at our Casa for breaky, Cienfuegos.

We were actually ready early, off to walk to central Cienfuegos, lots of old Colonial buildings. 
A couple of dogs joined us for our walk. Many people out and about for a busy shopping morning. Down the main street to Jose Martin square, City Hall, statues etc. 

Side street looking out to the Bay of Pigs in Cienfuegos.

Loved that even the 4wds are old. Here's poor old Willy having some car troubles. A common problem in Cuba, there are no new parts and spare parts are hard to come by.

Very proud to show off his car.

The telltale bonnet up with tow rope.

A busy house along the way.

These guys were piling into the cab, with beers in hand at 9am, they were keen for Suzie to take a photo...I think the guy in brown was bearing his bum tatt.

Cienfuegos the city I love more...or something like that.

Not sure if this was a humber. Someone will know.

An old mansion, now belongs to a radio station.

These are the fumigators, the government is doing its best to reduce the spread of Zika, all houses are fumigated. The inhabitants have to vacate for 45 minutes after fumigation. 

The main street of Cienfuegos, Big wide street with pedestrian mall/walkway down the centre of the road..

A typical street corner. Horses and carts, bikes, sidecars, pedestrians, buses and cars.

Horses and carts are used for many things, as taxis, as family vehicle, for cartage. A very regular sight, as car ownership is very low in Cuba.

A statue, this side celebrates the hard workers, this guy is wielding his sledge hammer.

The icecream shop.

Some more government progaganda. Gentleman without blemish or fear.

Cienfuegos lays claim to famous musician - Benny More. This is one of our little dog mates, who walked along with us for more than an hour. He another guys latched onto or little walking group, they even waited with us to cross roads.

Benny and I.

A pretty cool looking dude.

The fumigators mate, doing the paperwork.

Here is our little mate waiting patiently for us to come out of a souvenir shop in main mall. He was so patient. Jeannie was captivated by these two, she even brought some fresh ham off the bone (destined for human consumption with a roll) to feed them with.

Delivery guy.

Flower seller.

Our other little mate. He went AWOL for while but joined us again in the mall. Unfortunately the dogs weren't interested in Jeannie's ham. They left us soon after this photo.

This is the guy making ham rolls. This is where Jeannie got her meat for our dogs.

Another delivery guy.

Old sidecar.

Cienfuegos City Hall I think.

Another of the mansions, I loved the blue domed tower.

An old car parked in front of Rotunda in the main Plaza.

We stopped for a drink at a small bar, where there was a girl all dressed up in a meringue gown, we thought it was a wedding or photo shoot until Yaniel explained that this happens on the girls 15^th birthday, sort of like a deb, where they dress up to enter adulthood. 

This girl was using the cafe restrooms, she had a make up artist doing the face, then stepped out into the light for photos.

We saw this often in streets of Cienfuegos and Trinidad. Blokes (mainly) taking their birds for a walk. Some carried them on their bikes too.

The theatre.

This was an education institution of some sort. Pre-university I think Yaniel said.

Looking down the length of the Main Plaza.

A pigeon.

Lots of Lada's everywhere.

Final destination was the port, where we met our van, quickly back to Casa’s to collect luggage, check out and head to Trinidad, with a quick detour to collect my hat which I had stupidly left at the Restaurant last night, thankfully I realised as soon as we went to walk, Yaniel was able to call them and ascertain it was still there.

An interesting billboard. Cuba punching Uncle Sam.

En route we saw the Guamuhaya Mountain range to our left.

Trinidad was founded in 1514 and was developed around the sugar cane industry. There were wealthy sugar barons, huge haciendas and African slaves were imported to provide the labour. Slavery was eventually abolished in 1886.

Trinidad, as with all of Cuba has a complex history. The area was prosperous until the 1885 war against Spain, when things began a steady decline and the area and its people really struggled until tourism came to town around '89 I think. Yaniel described it as a very touristic town, with many museums and old buildings from the 18^th and 19^th centuries. It is famous for a drink ‘canchánchurra’ (honey, lime juice and rum with ice.) Playa Ancon, the beach is 10km away.

We arrived at our Casa’s – we are spread across 3, I am alone in Casa La Fruta, with Joellis and Irael, their daughter Oxanna and Joellis’ mum Maria. Margot and Glenda have the most palatial place owned by Gladys, who is the Locally Sourced Cuba Tours contact here. My Casa is great, a real family who want to interact. Suzie and Jeannie, not so great, so will move tomorrow night.

My room at Casa La Fruta.

Stylish Shower curtain.

The front sitting room, looks out onto verandah over street.

Front door with  ornate metalwork and my front room balcony up there.

Once settled, we headed off for our walking tour, after a delicious lunch at San Jose Restaurant. Very good service, the food was good too and prices reasonable, we were lucky (or so we thought) to score a table in the air conditioned section, it was SOOO hot out we were most appreciative, only to find that it was almost too cold, we all had goosebumps, but no one wanted to complain as we knew it was terribly hot outside. The toilet labels were notable too.

San Jose for lunch.

The loo labels. Ladies to the left, gentleman to the right.

The butcher just down the road on our street.

On our way to the Old Town, we stopped at a nearby bank to change some notes for smaller denominations. Having small change and a variety of notes has been a real challenge. We need small 25c coins for toilet tips, $1 cuc for photos at times, and generally a lot of places won’t take our $20 cuc notes, they just don’t have change. There is a $3 cuc note too, which we all find a fascinating value.

The Old Town is cobblestone and basically Spanish Colonial architecture painted in a range of colours. Of particular interest and the subject of MANY photos is the vast assortment of grates/bars/wrought iron/wooden covers - called Barrotes over windows and shutters and doors. 

Infant school. Sleep time in the arvo. All the kids laid out on stretchers sleeping.

An oldie.

The colour tones of the bougainvillea were stunning.

Doorways and barrotes

Alcoholics anonymous.

The other really noticeable thing is the amount of people out on the streets, some are just leaning on the barrotes, chatting with the people inside, or sitting on their steps talking to each other, lolling about on walls, or gathering at small cafeteria’s and other shops. Lots of people out socialising, communicating and moving through the streets.

A pottery shop that caught the eye.

We have seen lots of people carrying cakes. They are not covered...just walking holding them up like this.

Coloured houses in a curving street.

Barrote - wooden and green.

An old fella sitting out with his cigar.

Hats behind a blue barrote.

We visited the main square – Plaza Mayor which contained churches, large opulent houses built by the sugar barons and now owned by the government and re-purposed as museos, café’s, hotels, stores etc.

A lone gourd of some sort

The Plaza Mayor - a greyhound on guard. One for the Fearnley's.

Up close.

More plaza.

Plaza.

Plaza Mayor - the church.

Loved these urn type decorations.

Very stylish plaza. 

Saw my first instance of the Cubans using their Government Ration card to purchase staple items – beans, rice, salt, oil, spaghetti. This is all subsidised by the Government. Yaniel indicated that his rations for him, his wife and two baby girls cost only a few pesos per month.

Ration shop, weighing the beans.

Pouring them into the plastic bag. You can see the oil purchase, in an old soft drink bottle.

It was a hot day today, luckily we lunched late and for most of our walking tour the sun was behind clouds – boy was it stifling when it came out. 

more goods behind a barrote.

Back to Casa’s for a few hours before meeting for dinner at 6.45. I cooled off for a while, then went for a wander – got some postcards and stamps. Yes for some of you reading this, there is a postcard on the way, but I reckon I will beat it home by weeks and weeks. I spent 5 minutes or so at the Wi-Fi Park to check in with the world, finally some success with the ETECSA cards we had purchased in Havana. I had to get home to ready for dinner.

Home in our taxi.

Street seller.

Cleaning up his carrots.

My fridge at Casa, well stocked is an understatement.

Horse and cart sign.

Doors of Trinidad.

Looking into the barber shop.

Roof tiles for wall cladding.

Typical cobblestone street, horses, old cars.

Barrotes of Trinidad.

Doors of Trinidad.

Street art.

Maceo...maybe.

I''m not sure who this is. 

Found these guys in a courtyard playing dominoes. They were slamming the tiles down, it was good to watch.

Doing something to the house.

Welding a Barrote.

Back past the infant school, they've gone home and things are set up ready for the new day.

Have welder, will weld. 

An extension upstairs.

a bike seller.

The Cubans are obsessed with the Apple logo, Here tis on a bike, in place of number plate. Many cars had the Apple shape cut out of their tinted windows, as a view hole for the mirror.

The cactus (brings good luck) on my Casa balcony

Into the taxi, maybe this was our trip home this arvo.

Tea was at a place called Guittarra Mia – owned by one of the guitarists from the famous Buena Vista Social Club, now run by his son. They have their own cocktail – Guittarra Mia (The Hause Secret) which Margot and I opted for – coffee liqueur, cacao and run with ice, it was delicious, so good in fact we both went for seconds.

My Seafood mix contained lobster, shrimp and fish; it was a whole tail for not much. Cocktails are cheap – between $2 and $4 cuc (basically equivalent to our dollars.) Food, while not sensational here is Cuba is great and cheap, for 5 of us it is around $10 - $15 cuc per head – including cocktails.

One wall of decor.

Dinner, with guitar cut out of sweet spud and music notes and treble clef on the plate

Then a ‘special’ birthday cake, basically a custard caramel, with a hint of banana and the most amazing ‘firework/sparkler’ type candle/flame, that went for ages and a Spanish rendition of Happy Birthday sung by the resident guitarist, lights out and all. Thanks to Suzie and Yaniel for arranging this, seems were some ‘issues’ in getting it to happen.

Whenever something is not quite right, or not what we westerners would expect Yaniel refers to it as ‘issues.’ Some issues tourists experience in Cuba include poor water pressure, lack of hot water and the requirement to put loo paper in the bin not the bowl.

Then we went back to the Wi-Fi park for a while to check in again. Good service, no worries. Home to bed, however Joellis and Irael were keen for me to sit and chat with them in their front room. I did so for an hour or so – Joellis has good English, but Irael is a bit hard. They have a lovely little dog called T-phung (this is phonetic, as I have no clue how to spell it.) Chatted about Australia vs Austria and about myself, them and their lives. She is a primary teacher, but no work here at the moment. I think Irael works in the country, connected to fruit. They are very proud of their Casa called La Fruta to capitalise on their fruit connections and also to reflect the healthiness of fruit and the bright colours of fruit as well.