I flew 32 hours to get to Cuba and drink a chardonnay in Trinidad

Trinidad is quite a small town and I'm pretty sure we've wandered up and down most of the streets.  We've staying at Casa Juani, and it's very nice.  Upstairs with our own private terrace again.  The roosters are a little annoying early in the morning.

We've had two days with nothing planned so the first day we wandered the streets and visited a potter.  In the afternoon we caught a taxi to Playa Ancon.  As we left, it started to rain.  This turned out rather well as all the people had been scared off the beach so we were able to get beach loungers and a sun shade right on the beach, and the sun returned about two minutes after we arrived.  The water was heavenly - mum complained that it was too warm!  I mostly just floated about 10 feet from the beach so I'm not sure you can really call that swimming.

You can get good food in Cuba, it's the same price as all the other mediocre tourist fare, but you need to do your research.   Which we did.  La Botija the night we arrived had great tapas but terrible service.  La Redaccion for a lunch of tapas and sangria was fabulous (toast with blue cheese and tomatoes, avocados and shrimp, or something spicy and shrimp; and bread with a tomato salsa, a guacamole,  and a chickpea spicy dip).   Dinner after the beach was Vista Gourmet with great views over the city.  The salad buffet was very very nice, my lobster was the best we've had (apart from the ceviche in Havana) but still not as good as Darryn's, mum's pork was a bit dry, and the dessert buffet was a bit of a let down.  The restaurant is renowned for its sommelier so we decided to order one of the recommended wines.  They were out.  Instead they bought us something similar.  A chardonnay.   A nice chardonnay, but I would have preferred something a bit more exotic.

For our second free day, we organised a hike with a guide.  Three Italians,  two Germans, us, and our guide (Luis) piled into two four wheel drive taxis and headed for the hills.  Parque Guanayara is where we ended up via a viewpoint.  Luis was quite knowledgeable about the flora and fauna and we stopped regularly on the walk for another bit of information, went into a cave and saw bats (mum did, I was too busy climbing rocks), and stopped at a waterfall, El Rocio.  A few log bridges later (just like Dirty Dancing according to one of the Germans) and we were at the swimming hole.  The water was very "refreshing" - no complaints about warm water from mum today. 

We headed back the way we came (uphill, lots of steps) and drove to lunch near a health hotel/spa. We'd seen and heard about coffee plants on the walk and we stopped in at a coffee "museum" on the way home.  I've always imagined that coffee beans grew like green beans - in a pod.   But they're actually the seed from a berry (which I'm sure you all knew, but it came as a surprise to me).  Cuba grows Arabica coffee beans which have the best taste but relatively low caffeine.   The coffee at the museum was perfect. A no sugar coffee.

Lunch had been quite large, so we had tapas at La Redaccion again.  Yummmmm.