At the beach

I am writing this from our beach resort in Cayo Santa Maria.  There's not a lot to say about here (swim, lie around, eat, drink - it's all included) so I should catch up on our last couple of days. 

We had two tours as part of the trip in Trinidad.   The first was a night tour on the Friday night.  Julie, our guide, walked us around the night spots.  A replica of La Floridita from Havana, a replica of La Bodega del Medio where the bar woman had won a competition for the best mojito (they were very good) - apparently many places make them with the cheap white rum when they should be made with the three year old rum. 

We meandered past a number of other options while chatting with our guide (she and her husband live with her mother and are saving for a house, and a confrontation between the French and the Americans over the queue to the tower that nearly came to fisticuffs).  We had a quick look at the Casa de la Musica on the plaza steps and then on to a spot where the old folks hung out.  The music was lively and everyone stood and danced and clapped for several renditions of Feliz Compleanos.  Another mojito, not a good as the first.

More meandering.  The disco in the cave is up above the town but "we're too lazy to walk", there's a salsa bar off the plaza but "it's for young people, no where to sit", and back to the Casa de la Musica where the Afro-Cuban show was in progress.  Julie somehow scored us primo seats and we watched the show.  There are two brands of beer in Cuba, Bucanero and Cristal, which is apparently  calls a "girls' beer."  I don't really like beer, but I like Cristal so I had that.  And then home in time to be in bed by midnight.

We were quite excited about our full day tour on Saturday.   We'd got it in our heads that we'd catch the train to the Valle de Ingenios  (mills).  We must have got that wrong because it was sadly just a taxi.  One stop at a viewpoint and another at Manaca Iznaga to climb the tour and look at the embroidery market.  I had expected that we would see more but we were then back to the town where we visited a potter, a crochet shop, a casa particulare with lots of antiques and a friend of our guides, the art gallery - a nice old building and when I peeked into a no entry area, an artist at work.  Next, the museum which our guide took us through in tedious detail.  Mum climbed the tower while I had a sit.  We'd been walking forever and my legs were protesting. 

I took over the itinerary next and we stopped for an iced coffee at Don Pepe, a bit more wandering then lunch at San Jose restaurant which was very nice.

After a relaxing afternoon,  we had tapas and a Pina Colada at El Dorado (ok, but at 1 CUC very good value).  We had intended to stop by La Redaccion for another tapas but I screwed up the navigation and mum made me go to bed hungry.