23 October to 27 October 2015
After nearly a week in Havana it is time to leave the city, Candice and I both feel we have seen a good part of the place. The bus journey to Trinidad takes about six hours. Viazul advertises the buses as five star, but it is an old Chinese coach. I think one of the stars is for music. I guess it is better than the buses reserved for locals, which tourists can generally not get on, but that cost a fraction of Viazul.
Trinidad is a very pretty UNESCO world heritage town. We saw a painting of a view of Trinidad from the early 19th century in the Museo de las Bellas Artes in Havana. I said to Candice then that I bet that it hadn’t changed much since. It hasn’t. Houses, cobble stone, size … same same.
In the afternoon, we rent bicycles and ride the 12km to La Boca, a locals beach and along the Playa Ancon beach strip. 12km is a petty distance, but a real challenge on the broken, rotten bikes we were given. For 5CUC each, a vast sum for locals, we feel we deserved a better quality bike. Over the next weeks, we rent bicycles in three places and feel ripped off every time. There are some beautiful tranquil beaches along the way and we stop on one of them to swim. The view with the nearby rainstorm is dramatic.
Candice and I manage to organise a two day trip to the nature parks in the Sierra Escambray, just north of Trinidad. On Sunday morning, we are picked up by a 4×4 Hyundai Taxi, which takes us up the windy road to Toppes de Collantes, a village dominated by a large white Art Deco building, the Kurhotel. Cubans come here for physical rehabilitation.
The start of our hike in the Park Guayanabara is a bit further away. Together with Eddie, our guide, and ten other tourists, mainly from Europe, we walk the 4km trail along the “centuries of the melodious river”. It really is a pretty walk along a slow flowing clear creek through the lush green jungle. We jump into the wonderful waterhole, where you can swim behind the small waterfall and later on marvel at the three waterfalls of El Rocio. After our last stop at the coffee plantation and house, we leave the group and are dropped off at the Hotel Helecho, where we stay the night. The hotel consists of a number of block buildings, colourfully painted. Our room is large with balcony and smells of damp. The whole complex, indeed all of Toppes, has the wonderful charme of a DDR holiday village, old communist grandeur, where the Communist Party sends their loyal functionaries on a long deserved break. I love it. We take a sundowner at the hotel bar and agree on Free Reading time. I continue my photo series “Still life with mojito”.
The next day, Pedro, a local guide, meets us at 9am and takes us to two waterfalls, the Caburni and Villas Grandes falls. He had told us the day before that we would not be able to the walk ourselves, because we would never find the trail. I thought it was a scam to get some money guiding us, but Pedro is right, we would have never made our way through the river bed. There is no one else on this section of the hike and I love the adventure of it. But what I love even more is swimming underneath the waterfall and behind it. Paradise.
Pedro tells us a bit about his life. He is from the village and went to university in the provincial capital Santa Clara to study tourism. All university and living costs are free and students get a monthly allowance of USD 1.50 from the state. Him and a friend hitchhiked home every second weekend. Most of his friends and family are still in the area. There is little prospect of travelling, even around Cuba.
The taxi back to Trinidad costs 25CUC, which seems completely overpriced and close to London prices considering the short distance. It explains why taxi drivers are the richest people in Cuba. They earn a multiple of professionals such as lawyers or doctors. The driver who picks us up in Toppes proudly flashes his iPad and shows us pictures of his one year old son. He blasts loud music and when he drives into Trinidad though the narrow streets, he blows his horn and greets people at every corner, as if he was a king returning to the city.
There is also a lot of art in Trinidad and I would have loved to take some home, if I had a home…
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lisaimwunderland.com 
Hallo Lisa, wir haben deine Berichte über Cubase mit großem Interesse gelesen.
Meiner Ansicht nach ist richtiges Reisen weniger die Flucht vor als dieZuflucht zu sich selbst.
Liebe Grüße
Rudolf/Vita
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