Cuba: Trinidad

In the bus from Cienfuegos to Trinidad, we met Eva and Klaus, a couple from Germany who were traveling in Cuba for about 2 weeks. They had already booked a Casa for themselves in Trinidad, and we just went along with them to take a room in the same Casa.

Prior to that, we had already researched flights to Bogota and found out that the cheapest flight only goes once a week on Saturdays. In order to stick to our roughly planned Cuba itinerary, we had to extend our visa for 3 days. The travel guide said that it was very easy to extend your visa in Cuba. And so it began, the Odyssey of Horror. The address of the Immigration Office in Trinidad in the travel guide was wrong. So we wandered around in the heat for a while and asked around until we finally found the right place. When I walked into the office, the lady at the desk was talking to two other people. They definitely noticed me when I said hello, so we sat outside and waited for them to call us. What an illusion. After about 30 minutes, we got fed up and just went into the office. They then explained to us that somehow some child was sick, so a woman had stayed home, and that's why the Immigration Office was closed today and none of the other 6 people present could help us with the visas. Only available again on Monday. End of conversation, no further questions answered. After Jörg made a bit of a scene, another man from the Ministry of the Interior joined us. He explained to us that it was very important to extend the visa at least 7 days before the 30-day period expired, otherwise it's not possible anymore. We also found out that we cannot pay the fee of 50 dollars in cash, but have to go to a specific bank and obtain so-called "Sellos" (a type of stamp) in the equivalent value in order to pay for the visa with them. But anyway, it wasn't possible to extend the visa here, only available on Monday, we should go to the next province if we didn't want to wait that long. We didn't want to. But we immediately went to this bank, stood there for an eternity in order to at least get these Sellos. To be continued………….

Afterward, we took a look around Trinidad. It is actually a pretty city, very different from the others. All the streets are paved with cobblestones, all the houses are colorful, and the people mainly get around on horses or in horse-drawn carriages. Truly something special. We visited the Museo Historico Municipal, which was also nothing special, but you could climb a tower with a beautiful view of Trinidad. That was worth it.
Of course, it was also obligatory to visit the Museo Nacional de la Lucha contra Bandidos, mainly due to the fact that the fuselage of an American U-2 spy plane was exhibited there. Jörg loves planes and ships, even if he doesn't like to admit it. So we went there, of course. However, the fuselage turned out to be the remains of the casing of a jet engine. My enthusiasm for it is clearly visible in the corresponding photo. To capture Jörg's enthusiasm, I would have to write 2 pages of swear words.

In the evening, we met Eva and Klaus again and went to Casa de la Musica, where we listened to live music outdoors, watched a folklore show, and enjoyed a few Mojitos.

The next day, our plan was actually to rent a scooter and drive to Valle de los Ingenios, where the ruins of old sugar mills from the 19th century were to be visited. Eva and Klaus had offered to go with them by taxi, but we really wanted to go on our own and explore the area a bit. Bad idea. We walked around Trinidad for about 3 hours (in the heat) looking for a rental place. We found one, but they didn't have any scooters left. So we looked for another one. The Cubans on the street were very friendly and gladly explained the way to us, which led to us marching all over Trinidad. In the end, we ended up back at the first rental place where there were none. Haha. So we did what you do just before you're about to have a nervous breakdown: Vamos a la playa. The beach is actually the only thing that reliably works in Cuba because the water automatically washes up on the beach without the involvement of the Cubans. So we ended up at Playa Ancón. It was a really nice beach, you could even rent a beach chair in the all-inclusive resort as a non-guest, and we spent the afternoon comfortably on the beach chair. At the beach, we also met Javiera from Chile, who gave us some tips for Chile. We were also approached by an Italian couple who asked if they could share the return taxi with us to save some CUCs (Cuban Convertible Pesos, tourist currency). Our taxi driver was not very pleased and wanted to charge double the fare since there were twice as many people. Makes sense, right? We explained to him in every language we knew what we thought of that, and in the end, he only demanded the originally agreed price. This is Cuba....

When we got out of the taxi, we ran directly into the arms of Eva and Klaus and had dinner with them. Unfortunately, we didn't see them again afterward because we overslept the next day and they left earlier, but we will write them an email.