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1 <!doctype html> 2 <html lang="en"> 3 <head> 4 <meta charset="utf-8"> 5 <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"> 6 <title>Trinidad, Sancti Spiritus, Cuba - Chris Bracken</title> 7 <link href="/css/site.css" rel="stylesheet"> 8 <link rel="apple-touch-icon" sizes="180x180" href="/favicon/apple-touch-icon.png"> 9 <link rel="icon" type="image/png" sizes="32x32" href="/favicon/favicon-32x32.png"> 10 <link rel="icon" type="image/png" sizes="16x16" href="/favicon/favicon-16x16.png"> 11 <link rel="manifest" href="/favicon/site.webmanifest"> 12 <link rel="mask-icon" href="/favicon/safari-pinned-tab.svg" color="#140f42"> 13 <link rel="shortcut icon" href="/favicon/favicon.ico"> 14 <meta name="msapplication-TileColor" content="#603cba"> 15 <meta name="msapplication-config" content="/favicon/browserconfig.xml"> 16 <meta name="theme-color" content="#ffffff"> 17 </head> 18 <body> 19 <header id="header"> 20 <div class="site-title"> 21 <h1><a href="/">Chris Bracken</a></h1> 22 </div> 23 24 <nav class="site-navbar"> 25 <ul id="menu" class="menu"> 26 <li class="menu-item"><a class="menu-item-a" href="/">Home</a></li> 27 <li class="menu-item"><a class="menu-item-a" href="/about/">About</a></li> 28 <li class="menu-item"><a class="menu-item-a" href="/code/">Code</a></li> 29 <li class="menu-item"><a class="menu-item-a" rel="me"href="https://bsd.network/@cbracken">Fediverse</a></li> 30 </ul> 31 </nav> 32 </header> 33 <main id="main"> 34 <article> 35 <h2 class="post-title"><a href="https://chris.bracken.jp/2002/03/trinidad-sancti-spiritus-cuba/">Trinidad, Sancti Spiritus, Cuba</a></h2> 36 21 March 2002 37 <p>Looking down on the ocean from the rolling hills a kilometre away, Trinidad is 38 a small, traditional town whose population of 50,000 takes great pride in its 39 home. Founded by Diego Velásquez in 1514, Trinidad became a stopover for 40 explorers and trading ships travelling to and from México. During the 17th and 41 18th centuries, its economy largely depended on trading contraband with 42 pirates. The buildings are in incredibly good shape for their age, most of 43 which are at least two centuries old. It’s not too tough to see why Trinidad is 44 now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.</p> 45 <figure><img src="/post/2002-03-21-trinidad-street.jpg" 46 alt="Street in Trinidad, Cuba"> 47 </figure> 48 49 <p>Trinidad is about five hours from Havana by bus, and as with everything in 50 Cuba, there are two buses: one for Cubans, with a several hour long line-up, 51 and one for people with dollars, with basically no wait at all. Upon pulling 52 into Trinidad the bus was swarmed by masses of locals offering a room in a casa 53 particular. We ended up being shown one house, but it had been freshly painted 54 that afternoon and the fumes were pretty rough, so we set out wandering down 55 the streets in the dark. By sheer chance, we ran into an old grandfather 56 carrying a bucket and pushing his bike up the rickety cobblestone streets and 57 when we asked him if he knew of any places to stay he said that in fact, we 58 could stay at his house. This is how our planned two-night stay in Trinidad 59 ended up turning into a week-long stay in paradise.</p> 60 <p>Roberto and Elda, their daughter Mercedes, her husband Eddy, and their 61 11-year-old son Saúl made our stay in Trinidad one of the most relaxing visits 62 we had to anywhere in our travels. We would have breakfast every morning in a 63 little courtyard off to the side of the house, spend the mornings wandering the 64 cobblestone streets in search of pizza, and the evenings falling asleep to the 65 sound of Cuban salsas, merengues, and cha cha chas drifting through the window 66 from La Casa de la Trova across the street.</p> 67 <figure><img src="/post/2002-03-21-horse-cart.jpg" 68 alt="Horse-drawn cart driven by man and boy in Trinidad street"> 69 </figure> 70 71 <p>While most of the old town is centered around the main plaza, cathedral, and 72 clock tower, most of the action seemed to center around the plaza in the newer 73 part of town down the hill. Old men sitting on park benches sharing a bottle of 74 rum, school children eating peso ice cream, and the occasional black market 75 cigar salesman trying to pass off some cigars smuggled out of the local factory 76 all milled about the plaza in the hot, sticky heat. A bunch of us sat on our 77 park bench watching the old men on the bench across from us get progressively 78 more drunk from their homebrew, before eventually falling asleep. One thing 79 that anyone visiting Cuba can be assured of is eventually being offered a taste 80 of homemade rum. My guess is that neither the recipe nor the distilling of this 81 rum has changed much over the past few centuries, so you can be assured that 82 your experience will be as blindingly nerve-wracking as that of the colonial 83 sailors plying the waters of the Caribbean in the 1600s. Following the initial 84 jolt of fermented cane sugar hitting your stomach like a rock is the slow 85 nauseating feeling of vertigo creeping over your body; after that, a strange 86 queasiness, and finally recovery and swearing it off for life… or at least 87 the next day.</p> 88 <p>A few days into our stay in Trinidad, as we walked down a dark street off the 89 plaza, we heard music pouring out through a half-open gate. Peering inside we 90 were greeted with the sight of thirty or so people packed into a small dirt 91 courtyard, and a small band of grizzled 80-year-old men playing salsas on their 92 guitars and trumpets. People had pulled up some old wooden benches and were 93 serving mojitos made (I swear) straight rum, some sugar, and crushed mint. A 94 woman named Blanquita invited us in, offered us some mojitos and yanked us up 95 off the bench to teach us some salsa while chickens scuttled around our feet. 96 It was probably my most vivid memory of Cuba.</p> 97 </article> 98 </main> 99 100 <footer id="footer"> 101 <div class="copyright"> 102 <span xmlns:dct="http://purl.org/dc/terms/" xmlns:cc="http://creativecommons.org/ns#"> 103 The content of this site by 104 <a rel="cc:attributionURL" href="https://chris.bracken.jp/about"><span rel="cc:attributionName">Chris Bracken</span></a> 105 is 106 <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0">CC BY 4.0</a>. 107 </span> 108 </div> 109 </footer> 110 </body> 111 </html>