taco's & toucan's travels ~ 2019

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DAY 41

Week 6

TRINIDAD (Sancti Spíritus, CUB) to CIENFUEGOS (Cienfuegos, CUB)

Wednesday April 24^th, 2019

TODAYS MILEAGE – 56 miles / 90 kilometres

TRIP MILEAGE – 17,530 miles / 28,212 kilometres

As it’s only an hour and a half to our next overnight stop at Cienfuegos, our CEO Victor scheduled a 2PM departure which allowed us all morning to wander around Trinidad.

After hitting the “Hole In The Wall Gang” (i.e. an ATM), for hopefully the last time in Cuba, my room mate Derek and myself had to return to the very same bank and spent over an hour exchanging the 100 and 50 Cuban CUP peso notes - no one would take them as payment due to them being too large a bank note.

With the finances all sorted, we headed over to the main casa to see if anyone else was around. With no one in sight, we headed off over to the crafts market for Derrick to try and locate a dominos set.

We pulled up at the Plaza Mayor for a morning tea cerveza and ran into a few of the crew, did another lap of the crafts market for one of the girls looking for Canchánchara cups and settled on lunch back at Cubita’s, where all seven of our meals were great.

2PM on the dot and we were out of Trinidad and headed to Cienfuegos, the so called "Pearl of The South", which is the only settlement in Cuba that was not established by the Spanish. French immigrants from Haiti established the port town and it shows in the architecture, wide boulevards and promenades.

Apparently no visit to Cuba is completed without a visit to “the most romantic Cuban house” – Palacio de Valle, in the oceanside town of Cienfuegos.

As the story goes, the Moorish inspired 3 story building was a symbol of a Spanish merchants love for his wife. He ran a competition in which he combined several architects entries to have the building we have today.

It costs you $4 USD to visit the top floor open balcony, in which you receive a complimentary drink. Unfortunately, it does not appear that any of the entrance money is being spent on maintenance, which is unfortunate and the work that has been done, resembles a toddlers finger-painting in both execution and end finish.

As with most romantic love stories, this one also has a happy ending. After two years in the house, and with the wealthy merchant not being so wealthy after a downturn in sugar pricing, the wife left him and returned to Spain ..... presumingly living happily ever after.

After getting squared away and showered at the Hostal Yanelis & Kiki, we all headed out for a rather special dinner tonight - it would was our last with our driver “Beef Steak” as when he drops us off in Havana tomorrow, he will be on another tour.

We ended up in the cramped environs of a converted house that is Restaurante Bahía where the food was good, but the service requires some attention.

At the conclusion of the meal, Andrea and Natalie presented “Beef Cake” with a photo they took of him driving the bus, while I gave him something that he says aids him in his domino playing – a carton of Cristal cervezas.