do the hustle

lacework on show at a ruined sugar mill

some of the great scenery around Trinidad

Like Havana's Old Town, Trinidad has UNESCO World Heritage status.  It is on most tourists' itinerary when they come to Cuba as we realised when we can't find a room in any casa.  They are all full.  Looking further afield the standards drop.  We keep looking - and finally find a frilly pink room with a roof terrace.  Our charmless hostess has clearly seen many tourists come and go.  The sense that we are treated slightly differently here - because there are so many tourists, it seems to be the sole income source for the town - puts us off the place. 

It is very pretty - the old courtyard houses and cobbled streets climb up a hillside overlooking the sea.  We enjoy walking around.  There are tourist shops selling clothes and crafts, restaurants that look like restaurants, rather than someone's front room.  And bars with live music, the sound of the Buena Vista Social Club drifting across the streets.  It occurs to us we only hear bands playing this music in tourist places - but how else can they earn any money?

After a couple of nights we're ready to head off early.  We are quickly on the coastal road going west when we start to notice the dead crabs on the road. A friend had described to us this scene - driving down a road covered in crabs.  Up ahead of us there's a line of traffic.  Taxis and cars are threading their way slowly through a sea of migrating crabs.  Accompanying the awful smell of dying crabs is the pitter patter of claws as the crabs skitter in all directions as vehicles come close.  We soon find ourselves ahead of the cars - someone tells us later that the drivers are worried about punctures.  We have no such fear although I do wonder if the crabs might see us as fair game.  I do not want to stop.  Gayle tries to take photos but the crabs pinch her feet when she stops.

Nearing Cienfuegos we meet two Dutch cyclists taking a rest in the shade at a junction.  They make a reference to it being an easy day for them. They also have come from Trinidad.  It's a kind of macho thing to say, I think.  All I want to say is "Did you see the crabs!!!" Instead I say nothing while they explain why they're going to take the easy flat road to Cienfuegos instead of the up and down road along the shoreline of the bay.  We'll take the up and down road.  And we'll get to Cienfuegos afore ye!  And then to my dismay Gayle agrees to meet with them in the main plaza, in front of the church, at five o'clock.  None of has been to the city but we assume there's a church in the main plaza.

After our up and down journey into the city we find a casa on a main road in an old house.  The rooms are along an open corridor linking the big reception room to a kitchen out the back.  A youngish man lets us in.  He seems a bit simple. The owner is a chubby bald man who speaks some English.  We head off to meet the Dutch cyclists but they don't show.  So we go for a look around the city centre and to find some food.  It's only a few day's later that we learn the clocks have gone forward one hour in Cuba and we didn't know.  Either that or we have been travelling in Cuba for five weeks on the wrong time.  

he's behind you!

Cienfuegos is another city buit by French settlers

In the morning there's a woman cleaning in the casa.  We have been chatting with another guest - a young German who arrived last night.  The cleaner looks like she is going into our open room, so I quickly get up and follow her in.  The owner appears.  Do we want our room cleaned?  No thanks.  No-one in Cuba has cleaned a room we've stayed in while we're there.  Before we go out to the market we close all our panniers.  It was a prescient move. The cleaning woman also reminds us to lock our room door before we leave.  How helpful of her. When we return about two hours later it is clear all the panniers have been opened, because they haven't been closed properly.   A quick check and we can't find anything missing.  We carry our passports and valuables with us.  Inevitably we suspect the cleaner.  I find the owner and tell him someone has been into our room and opened all our bags. He acts horrified and then defensive.  We soon suspect that he is in on the act, or at least is protecting his cleaner, but as he correctly points out to us, after asking, if nothing has been stolen then what is there to do?  We leave and find another casa.

Our route out of the city is to head around the bay and out to a point near the coast where we can access a sandy dirt track along the coast.  Another cyclist has told us how to find the aceess to it and his description is really useful.  He didn't mention the nuclear power station. (Apparently it was never completed by the Russians.) Only at the point when we head off the road do we need to check we're at the right place - the track is not marked or signposted.  

We have a wonderful ride that sticks very close to the shore.  The track is alternately sandy or rocky but we can cycle most of it quite easily and this day's cycling gets rid of any residue of bad feeling we have about Cienfuegos.  The track spits us out onto a dirt road that becomes tarmac and leads to a beach called Playa Giron. There's a small village here and we stop for the night.  This was the beach used in the doomed Bay of Pigs invasion.  It's a pleasant quiet place these days.

On the way to Playa Larga we find a couple of rocky coves where Gayle can swim. The water is turquoise and very clean. In the Playa Larga village there's a kiosk selling snacks and that all-important home-made caramel custard.  It would seem churlish not to stay a few nights.