Cuba (5): Trinidad Walking Tour

An Old Colonial Town and UNESCO World Heritage Site

Introducing Trinidad

Cuba

Trinidad de Cuba

The Villa de la Santísima Trinidad was founded in 1514 by the Spanish conquistador Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar. It is now called Trinidad de Cuba or just Trinidad when there is no likelihood of confusion.

Trinidad grew and prospered on the sugar trade, the plantations worked by slave labour. Although Spain abolished slave trading in 1820, the practice continued on the island until 1886. The sugar industry did not survive the end of slavery and Trinidad now makes its living from processing tobacco and tourism, its new growth industry – at least it was until March this year.

The town, a couple of kilometres from the Caribbean coast is the centre of a much larger municipality. The municipality, with a population of 77,000, is a rough semicircle of radius 30 km, bounded by the Caribbean Sea to the south and the Sierra del Escambray, to the north. Trinidad’s Old Town and the nearby Valle de los Ingenios (Valley of the Sugar Mills) together make a UNESCO World Heritage site.

The Island of Cuba with Trinidad on the Caribbean Coast

Plaza Mayor and Around

Leaving our B&B in Calle Gloria…

Hostal Maidys, Calle Gloria, Trinidad

…we turned left and then right through the narrow, cobbled streets and made our way uphill to the Plaza Mayor, the heart of the Old Town.

I had expected a proper city square, but the road merely widens and ends in a set of broad steps colonised by a café, leading up to the ‘Casa de la Música’.

A little way along a road to the left was a small garden surrounded by white railings and a walkway. This, according to Google maps is the Plaza Mayor.

Plaza Mayor, Trinidad

The Plaza is described as a ‘historic city park with public art’. It is a pleasant space and the hedges are neatly trimmed, but there is little public art beyond an underwhelming marble statue of Terpsichore, the Greek muse of dance.

The Plaza Mayor from the other side with Terpsichore bottom left and the Church of the Holy Trinity behind

Iglesia de la Santisima Trinidad

The edge of the square and the surrounding streets contain a cluster of colonial buildings. Most noticeable is the Iglesia Parroquial de la Santísima Trinidad (Parish Church of the Holy Trinity), its neo-Classical façade featuring in the photo above. The building is hemmed in on both sides, so the exterior has nothing of interest beyond the façade.

The church was completed in 1892, replacing an earlier building destroyed during a hurricane.

The interior is largely plain. The most venerated object is El Señor de la Vera Cruz, an 18th century wooden statue of Christ on the cross. The story goes that the statue was ‘originally destined for a church in Veracruz in Mexico... [but]... the ship carrying the statue was driven back to Trinidad three times by bad weather and was only able to make the journey after abandoning part of its cargo which included the statue of Christ. This was taken as divine intervention by the local population.’ (Wikipedia). Parts of that story do not quite ring true. The statue is in a side chapel, but due a failure in my research I have no picture; it is, though, identical, but for the slant of the head, to the one at the front of the church. The statues behind were covered because it was Lent.

Interior of the Iglesia Santísima Trinidad, Trinidad

I do have a nice picture of a different side chapel, if that is any consolation.

Side Chapel, Iglesia Santísima Trinidad, Trinidad

Brunet Palace

The handsome building next door is the so-called Brunet ‘Palace’. The original house was built in 1741 for Captain Felipe Santiago de Silva. Two generations later it was sold to José Mariano Borrell who added the upper floor in 1808. When he died in 1830 the house passed to his daughter who married Nicolas Brunet. I am uncertain how long the house was in the hands of the Brunet family, but their name has stuck. In 1973 it became the Museo Romántico, most of the items on display coming from the collection of the Borrell family.

Brunet Palace, Trinidad

National Museum of the Struggle Against the Bandits

A little further down Calle Cristo is the Former Convent of Francis of Assisi, now the National Museum of the Struggle Against the Bandits. We thought we ought to drop in and find out who ‘the Bandits’ were and it provides an appropriate place for…

Bell Tower of the Former Convent of St Francis of Assisi, Trinidad

Cuban-American Relations (3)

Fidel Castro in 1959
(Library of Congress)

Following on from Part 2 in Viñales to Trinidad. In 1952 a young lawyer named Fidel Castro challenged Batista’s coup in the courts. He lost, so he and brother Raúl gathered supporters and stockpiled weapons. In July 1953 they attacked the Moncado Barracks, but the attack failed and the brothers were given lengthy jail terms.

Released under an amnesty in 1955 they went to Mexico where along with Che Guevarra they recruited and trained a revolutionary group. The Castro brothers, Guevara and 80 others left Mexico in November 1956 by yacht and landed in Eastern Cuba. They set out for the Sierra Maestra but were attacked by Batista’s army. The leaders survived, but the force was severely depleted.

They regrouped and recruited. Castro’s small efficient force helped by the (anti-communist) Student Revolutionary Directorate and other anti-Batista groups, harried Batista’s army in a lengthy guerrilla campaign. The Americans became ever more irritated with Batista’s behaviour and in 1958 imposed an arms embargo.

Raúl Castro and Che Guevara in 1958

Meanwhile Castro’s weapon supply was organised by Frank Sturgis whose relationship with the CIA has always been opaque. He re-emerged from the shadows in 1972 as one of the Watergate burglars.

Batista’s defeat at the Battle of Santa Clara on December 31st 1958 by a combined force of opposition groups completed the revolution. A week later, Fidel Castro became Prime Minister.

At first America welcomed the revolution as a blow for democracy – Fidel Castro denied he was a communist - and recognised the new government. Their mood soon changed as Castro started nationalising US interests.

The counter-revolution started almost immediately. A coalition of former Batista soldiers, local farmers, and the Student Revolutionary Directorate who had previously fought alongside Castro gathered in the Sierra de Escambray north of Trinidad. At first they were supported by the Dominican Republic’s dictator Rafael Trujillo and the CIA. The CIA withdrew their backing after the Bay of Pigs fiasco in April 1961, and Trujillo was assassinated in May 1961. The uprising was doomed, though fighting continued until 1965.

Museum of the Struggle against the Bandits, Trinidad

The museum covers the years of the Escambray Rebellion, or the Struggle Against the Bandits, as they call it - they are very clear who are the goodies and who the baddies.

There are displays of equipment, much of it Russian in origin, descriptions of the course of the struggle, and photographs of the Cuban martyrs.

The Cuban martyrs, Museum of the Struggle Against the Bandits, Trinidad

St Francis of Assisi Bell Tower

The former convent’s bell tower is on the museum premises, but has no exhibits….

The Bell tower of the former Convent of St Francis of Assisi, Trinidad

…except for a view north to the Sierra del Escambray where all the fighting happened.

The Sierra de Escambray from the former Convent of St Francis of Assisi, Trinidad

Alternatively, you can gaze south across the town to the blue of the Caribbean…

Looking south across Trinidad to the Caribbean

…or down at the little Plazuela del Cristo.

Plazuela de Cristo, Trinidad

It is remiss of me to have reached the fifth Cuban post with hardly a mention of music. Music is everywhere and (almost) every Cuban considers themselves a musician. There was, of course, music in the Plazuela del Cristo. The band cannot be seen from the tower because the sun was hot and like all sensible people, they were playing in the shade.

The band on the Plazuelo de Cristo, Trinidad

To Plaza Santa Ana

Coffee time had arrived so we walked back past the Plaza Mayor, lingered over an espresso in a convenient café and then made our way north(ish). The grid of old streets has gates at the northern and southern entrance to keep traffic out, an attendant opening them for local residents and deliveries. Like everywhere in Cuba, old American cars are relatively abundant – an unintended consequence of Cuban-American relations (see part 4).

Aged American car enters Trinidad's old town

Old American vehicles apart, there are surprisingly few cars on the streets of Trinidad. The top end of Calle Santa Ana was empty apart from one cycle rickshaw.

Calle Santa Ana, Trinidad

At the end of the street is the small Plaza de Santa Ana. It contains a bust of Isidoro Armenteros who led a minor uprising against the Spanish in Trinidad on the 24th of July of 1851. It was quickly put down and Armenteros was executed.

Isidoro Armenteros, Plaza de Santa Ana, Trinidad

A simultaneous uprising in Camaguey was equally unsuccessful. Both were in support of one of a series of speculative invasions by freelance General Narciso López. None of them achieved much, but the flag López designed for his men to follow is now the national flag.

The Church of Santa Ana for which street and square are named…

The ruined church of Santa Ana, Trinidad

…is a ruin, and has been since 1812. Lots of sources tell me that, but nobody wants to tell me why.

Inside the Church of Santa Ana, Trinidad

Lunch at the Jazz Café

Returning to the centre we decide to lunch in the Jazz Café, not just because they offered free wifi, they had a band, too, not playing jazz as much as cheerful Cuban music.

Soon after we sat down the wifi gave up. It was the only power cut we experienced in Cuba, but fortunately we had just ordered gazpacho soup and a cheese sandwich with banana chips which required no heating.

Lunch at the Jazz Café, Trinidad

The band were less fortunate. The bassist put down his instrument, shrugged his shoulders and left. The drummer decided that without his friend in the rhythm section his contributions were unnecessary. The guitarist and singers carried on doggedly. They were really rather good.

The remains of the band after the power went off, Jazz Café, Trinidad

The Baleful Influence of Covid

We returned to our accommodation, arriving just in time to take a phone call from our local agents. Our original departure date was next Tuesday, but Covid had caused much cancelling of flights, so at first were told we would leave on Friday (tomorrow) which had not pleased me. Yesterday we had a call saying we had confirmed flights for Monday, which was acceptable. Today I learned that 'confirmed' did not quite mean what I thought. Now, we were still leaving Cuba on Monday evening and flying to Paris, but we would then have to fly to Amsterdam to get a connection to Birmingham. Oh well. We were given flight numbers and a booking reference, so this was properly confirmed (I think).

We went out for a stroll, venturing into the new town to change some money (Cuba is a cash economy and our cards did not work in the ATMs) and buy some new internet cards as ours had run out. 1$ (peso or dollar, same value, same sign) buys a password for an hour’s use of a wifi hotspot. You must then remember to turn off your device, or next time you wander unknowingly through a hotspot it will connect automatically and use up your time.

Trinidad's New Town

Both the money changer and ETECSA (Cuban telecom) were operating a one in, one out policy, and a man on the door ensured hands were sanitised. Up to then I had thought of Covid as a problem ‘over there’, now I had to reassess.

Little Parque Céspedes in the centre of the hardly enormous Plaza Carillo was green, shady and a wifi hot spot.

Parque Céspedes, Trinidad

Here we learned that at home toilet paper and cleaning products had disappeared from supermarket shelves and that in some places there was no meat, though fish was available. It never ceases to amaze me how panic buying can create shortages when none really exist.

Trinidad’s New Town

A poorly dressed old man shuffled into the park. He took off his cap, looked round, saw us and hobbled over. Lynne dropped a coin into his outstretched cap, which he accepted as his due. Several of the people sitting round remonstrated with him; I wish my Spanish was good enough to understand what was said. I felt sorry for the old man (who may actually have been younger than me!), but he had clearly transgressed the Cuban moral code. Cuba has an all-encompassing welfare system, and very few beggars.

We strolled gently back, reading restaurant menus and taking a few pictures. I had yet to become used to the number of horse-drawn vehicles in the streets.

Horse drawn vehicles, and where they may not go, Trinidad

I was also unsure if the town was particularly quiet; do the parked cars we routinely see lining narrow residential roads at home make our towns look busier than they are?

Would this street look busy if both sides were lined with parked cars?

Dinner at Casa Mimi

We chose our restaurant for dinner on the menu – and on the availability of free wifi. Customers seemed in short supply, but with Covid driving many tourists home early and no new travellers arriving, business was poor everywhere.

My daiquiri could have benefited from more rum, Lynne's mojito was fine. Lynne chose the Cuban speciality ropa vieja (lit: old clothes) which is a stew of sorts, cooked for hours until the meat can be shredded. We had enjoyed a pork variant in Viñales, but this was the traditional beef version. It was, she said, very good. My pork and onions was fine, if a little chewy.

Dinner at Casa Mimi, Trinidad

Cuba

Part 1: Havana
Part 2: Havana to Viñales
Part 3: Walking the Viñales Valley
Part 4: Viñales to Trinidad de Cuba
Part 5: Trinidad (1) The Town
Part 6: Trinidad (2) Valle de Los Ingenios
Part 7: Santa Clara and Che Guevara
Part 8: Jibacoa and a Strange Trip Home

Cuba (4): Viñales to Trinidad de Cuba

From the Straits of Florida to the Caribbean Sea

Leaving Viñales

Cuba

With an early start, breakfast was booked for 5.30. Basita rose to the challenge, had everything ready on time and even produced cheese and ham buns for lunch on the journey.

Our taxi was booked for 6.30, at 6.31 Basita was on the phone asking where it was. It arrived soon enough after that. Before we said our goodbyes she requested the travel company’s voucher for our accommodation and one dinner; she did not ask for any payment for our lunch on arrival, the beer with that dinner, the coffee and biscuits yesterday afternoon or today’s packed lunch. We folded a tip inside the voucher, if we had given it openly she might possibly have refused.

Lynne and Basita, Casa Basita, Viñales

If you ever find yourselves in Viñales, we can recommend Casa Basita!

Five-minutes later we reached the town square where there was a bus with ‘Trinidad’ prominently displayed on its windscreen. We joined the queue to place our baggage in the hold, but when our turn came the driver looked at our tickets and shook his head.

Viñales is just north Pinar del Rio in western Cuba. The journey to Trinidad on the south coast is about 500 km

We had not previously noticed, but a disconsolate looking group was gathering across the road. We mooched over and compared tickets and destinations. ‘Wrong bus company’ somebody said gesturing at the vehicle that had rejected us all. Our group grew a little and after a mildly worrying ten minutes a large cheerful man arrived and led us round the corner to where the right company’s bus was hiding.

Viñales to Cienfuegos

We left ten minutes later than the 7 o’clock schedule, not because of the initial confusion but because of an absent passenger. Neither bus was full, perhaps the European Covid lockdowns were dragging people home and preventing new arrivals replacing them.

‘I’m Joel,’ the cheerful fellow said as we set off, ‘and I’m a singer, like Billy Joel, but with less money, so I do this job, too.’ Not that he did much; at stops he told us for how long, and he announced our destination but, that apart, he was along for the ride.

And it was a particularly interesting ride. For the first couple of hours we retraced our steps from two days ago, back to Pinar del Rio and along the Autopista Este-Ouste to the outskirts of Havana. The autopista runs through flat agricultural land – there was little to look at on the way out, and no more on the way back.

Then we turned south and stopped for coffee.

We stopped for coffee, but garlic was also an option!

After that there was a little more to look at….

Rural Cuba, not the most exciting image, but the views were improving

…but not a lot. We stopped for lunch at a large, smart purpose-built restaurant and services complex. Joel and Benito, the driver, went off for some chicken and rice but we were dining at our B&B and experience suggested it would not be a snack. A meal was out of the question, so like most of our fellow passengers, we had a beer and wandered round until it was time to leave and then ate our cheese and ham buns on the bus.

We had a nice, clean, comfortable bus to travel on

Again it was not a particularly interesting drive…

A colourful spot on the way to Cienfuegos

….until we reached Cienfuegos.

Cienfuegos

Cienfuegos

The capital of a province of the same name, Cienfuegos is one of Cuba’s most important industrial centres and ports. The population is quoted as 160,000 but Cuban population figures are always for the ‘municipality’, a much larger area than the city, which looks a small, tidy settlement on aerial photographs. ‘Cienfuegos’ means ‘100 fires’ but it was named after José Cienfuegos, Captain General of Cuba 1816-19 not a conflagration. Camilo Cienfuegos, one of the leaders of the revolution along with the Castro brothers and Che Guevarra, is revered but has no particular connection with the city.

We stopped to drop off a group of passengers near the pedestrianised centre which looked clean and well-maintained.

Central Cienfuegos

To those passing through, the city looked pleasant, even affluent, though as we turned onto the Circuito Sur which would take us the last 80km to Trinidad, the vehicles coming towards us were a scooter, three horse drawn taxis and a bus.

Cicuito Sur, Cienfuego - one scooter, three horse drawn taxis and a bus

Cuban-American Relations (2)

A poster at the exit of the town boasted that Cuba would smash the American blockade. This has prompted Cuban-American Relations (2). Part 1 can be found in Havana to Viñales.

Smash the bloqueo, Cienfuegos

I will spare you the tortuous story of how Cuba finally wrested its independence from Spain in 1902, with the not-entirely altruistic assistance of the USA. Cuban democracy was always a sickly child, struggling with a series of armed insurrections and American interventions. Meanwhile, Havana became an American tourist centre, particularly during Prohibition, and that brought gambling, prostitution and corruption in its wake.

Fulgencio Batista in 1940

The Great Depression saw sugar prices drop and take Cuba’s shaky democracy down with them. The 1933 Sergeants' Revolt brought power to Sergeant Fulgencio Batista who ruled through a series of puppet presidents before becoming president himself in 1940.

Leaving office in 1944 he went to Florida, returning for the 1952 Presidential Elections. Realising he could not win the vote, he staged a coup and became President anyway.

Back in power, Batista allowed American companies to plunder Cuba’s resources, particularly the sugar industry, while enriching himself from the proceeds of organised crime. Unrest caused by high unemployment made him vulnerable to a counter-coup and even US President Eisenhower realised that Cuba would be better off without him.

It was time for a revolution – which brings us to Part 3, later.

The Caribbean Sea

The Circuito Sur wandered inland for 50 minutes before heading for the coast. Cuba has coastlines on the Atlantic Ocean, the Straits of Florida, the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, though precisely where one stops and the next starts is negotiable. The waters round Havana are ‘Straits of Florida’, but the south coast is incontrovertibly Caribbean and we had our first glimpse as the road descended towards Yaguanabo. The sea is clearly blue, but I shall generalise no further from this one little corner.

The Caribbean at Yaguanabo

Trinidad and Hostal Maidys

Trinidad de Cuba

Half an hour later we were in Trinidad de Cuba, though ‘de Cuba’ is only added when there is a possibility of confusion with the large island at the other end of the Caribbean.

Trinidad is not a large town and the bus was soon parked at Plaza Carillo, the town centre. We were met by a young man who led us round the corner to his cycle rickshaw.

Cycle Rickshaw and driver, Trinidad

From the plaza in the New Town he took us to Calle Gloria in the Old Town, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The distance was only a couple of hundred metres but it was all uphill – not steep but steadily rising – and the Old Town is cobbled.

Calle Gloria, Trinidad Old Town

Pedalling a heavily laden, single-gear bicycle uphill over old, uneven cobble was hard work and we made slow progress but the young man remained cheerful and obliging, carrying our bags into Hostal Maidys for us.

Hostal Maidys, Calle Gloria, Trinidad

Maidy, like Basita in Viñales, was the lady in charge. Behind the narrow, pastel-painted and well-fortified façade, the house goes back a long a way. There is a family lounge inside the door, beyond that a well-equipped kitchen and then an atrium with potted palms and other plants and two guest rooms off. Upstairs were two more rooms a railing round the atrium and a dining area with four tables. There must be accommodation for Maidy and her family, too, but I am not sure where it was.

The Baleful Influence of Covid 19

A phone call from our local agents informed us of new arrangements for returning home. Today was Wednesday, we were originally booked to return next Tuesday, but with flights being cancelled, our British agents had found us a flight on Friday. I had expressed my displeasure at losing so much of our trip. The new version had us leaving on Monday, sacrificing only our second day at a coastal resort.

Having established all at the B&B was to our liking we went out to find a café with free wifi or, failing that, a hot-spot where we could use the internet card we had bought in Havana to email our British agents and accept the new flights. There was no obvious café, but there was an obvious hot spot and the deed was done.

Spot the wifi hot-spot, Trinidad

As this was our fourth full day, we had developed a routine – we tend to do that sort of thing – and the routine demanded we drop into a appropriate café for a late afternoon cocktail. So we did.

I did not need a shirt, I just borrowed one of the table cloths

Dinner with Maidy

The temptation to compare Maidy with Basita in Viñales was strong, but unfair on Maidy; Basita was incomparable. Maidy was welcoming and efficient and all you would normally hope for in a B&B owner. She produced a good three-course meal for six on time and without fuss.

We dined with a Swedish couple who had arrived just after us, and a British couple who had been there a few days. He was having the holiday from hell – and she was long-suffering. A pre-existing condition had flared up while he was in Cuba and he had seen the inside of a hospital or two. He seemed a little dismissive of Cuba’s usually highly regarded medical services and was desperate to go home, but so far he had only been offered an Aeroflot flight via Moscow in a week's time.

Maidy provided squash soup, fried fish with sweet potatoes and salad followed by ice-cream. It was a big slab of meaty fish – marlin was the consensus view. We had eaten marlin once before, in one of the themed dinners we used to attend in the Reform Tavern, Woodseaves, now long demolished – a few others might remember those.

Cuba

Part 1: Havana
Part 2: Havana to Viñales
Part 3: Walking the Viñales Valley
Part 4: Viñales to Trinidad de Cuba
Part 5: Trinidad (1) The Town
Part 6: Trinidad (2) Valle de Los Ingenios
Part 7: Santa Clara and Che Guevara
Part 8: Jibacoa and a Strange Trip Home