Trinidad

We knew we needed to get a bus ticket to Havana and had tried the day before, alas, the office closed at 3 and we arrived at 3:30!

Off we went first thing of the day.  Even early, there was a line of people waiting to buy Viazul tickets to somewhere else in Cuba.  We get to the front of the line, and....the bus is sold out for 3/28.  We weren't sure what we were going to do.  I asked to be put on a waiting list.

As we were leaving the station, we saw a travel agency and went in to find out if they could sell us tickets.  No, but they told us that we could get tickets at Cubacan and gave directions, which we didn't catch!

Once again, we were bailed out by maps.me.  This app gave great directions to all sorts of locations. Thank you Katie for telling us about it.  We finally find this place, which was a miracle as it was basically a broom closet sized office, with very small signage!  The women in their was really great. She helped us buy a ticket on the Gaviota bus, which left from in front of the Iberostar Grand Hotel off Parque Cespedes.  The tickets were relatively cheap 27CUC each which was a few bucks more than the Viazul.  Didn't matter, it was miles cheaper than a private/collectivo taxi to Havana.

We set out to explore Parque Cespedes and thought, let's check out the Iberostar.... maybe it will have wifi.  Woo-hoo, not only did it have wifi, but it was fiercely aircon-ed.  Oh, happy day.  If you buy a drink, then the wifi is much cheaper...like it was a question!

A couple of drinks later and some frustration with the wifi, we finally got in and checked our email and sent some messages.  Bill kept checking his NYTimes headlines only to frustrate himself.  Me, I was so happy to be unplugged from Trumpland!

After leaving the Iberostar, we needed some food, and went into this little hole in the wall place that had beer on tap and a friendly barkeep.  It looked like it was going to rain, so it was a good place to wait that out.  2 cerdo (pork) dishes later, along with a couple of Bucanero beers, we left feeling pretty darn good! 

When we were at Cubacan, the woman talked about some of the tours that they run.  Bill was quite interested, but wanted to think about it before buying tickets.  We went back to the office only to find that it was closed.  He was interested in the waterfall and Topas de Collante tour.

Meandering around most of the afternoon, we visited a museum that had a scale model of the town of Trinidad in it's lobby.  We were fortunate to be given access to the roof.  Up

two flights of very rickety stairs, we were treated to a glorious view of all of Trinidad, down to the water and up to the hills.

We went back to the Cubacan office and it was miraculously open. Bill asks for 2 tickets for the waterfall tour and is told it's 96CUC.  He swallows, and knows that he can't back out now!  In for a penny, in for a pound.  (The tour was totally worth every penny/CUC we spent on it, more later).

We headed up north, again, in order to walk along the northern edge of the town to a ruined church, Santa Ana.  The walk offered many interesting street scene photo ops.  See above photos

A small park next to  Santa Ana allowed us to sit and relax. We sat ostensibly to cool off, but decided that we would both read.  I was reading Oscar Wao, and Bill was reading Hooded Crow.  

On the plaza were a group of about 8 young men playing soccer and to our immediate right were a group of 4 - 5 young Cuban men with a bottle of aged rum, drinking and whiling away the lovely afternoon.  The soccer game was a hoot to watch as it got quite heated at times.  At one point, the ball scooted between me and the drinkers.  The youths who were playing took little mind of either party and battled it out until they fell off the plaza into the bushes.  No one was hurt, all were laughing. The game continued for what seemed like hours.  It was getting dark, and we gathered up our stuff to leave, the game was still in going full throttle.