Cuba - Day 6 - Sugar Sugar & the Canchanchara

Today we had, shockingly, another full day planned touring in and around Trinidad.  Our guide negotiated a 10:30am start time (we are always raring to go before that), but we still woke up early to the sound of roosters cock-a-doodle-doing, dogs barking, and horses clip-clopping on the cobblestone.  Thank goodness our street was a bit off the main area and everyone went to bed early because you can hear absolutely everything that goes on outside.

We started with breakfast out on the “back porch”, which was actually just the roof right of the back half of the building and just off our kitchen.  The previous Casa inhabitants (our good friend Danae) had requested that the kitchen table be put outside, so we just kept it out there since it was so nice in the mornings.

Trinidad is/was well known for sugar production pre-revolution, so the first stop on our tour was a lookout over a huge valley that used to be covered in sugar plantations and worked by 16,000 thousand of slaves.  Right now, only a very small percentage of the fields are in use.  From what we learned, since people can neither own nor profit from a sugar crop, no one works it.  So what was once one of the largest sugar producing regions in the world, now just sits there mostly empty.

Our second stop was what used to be an active sugar plantation – we could see the main house (or “white house” as our guide referred to it since it is where the white people lived) and there were ruins where the sugar cauldrons boiled the sugar as well as ruins of the slave quarters.  There was also a tower that the guards used to watch for slaves escaping – apparently every plantation had a tower for this reason, although few remain. 

And for some reason, there were cows just roaming around.  As was typical, the safety precautions were nil – there were a places where tape sort of blocked areas, but we just went around everything, and tried not to trip over stuff or fall in holes.

Our third stop was at one of the more famous sugar plantations as it had the tallest tower in the area – 45 meters – and we climbed to the top for an amazing view of the sugar valley.  The area had a long drive way leading up to another main house that is in the process of being restored.  The driveway is lined with locals selling their wares to tourists.  Our guide, whose family name is the same as the town we were in as well as the tower, commented that it was sad that he had to pay an entrance fee to the tower that his family had built.  He also commented that his family had occupied the main house years earlier.

Damon's artistic shot deserves a special shout out:

As we were climbing the 10 trillion steps to the top, our guide told us the story of the tower – that years ago, there were two brothers, each in love with the same woman.  One built a tower 45 meters high to impress her and the other dug a well 45 meters deep.  We are not sure who got the lady, but I’m guessing it was the tower guy.  Given that our guide new the history of the place fairly well, he asked us if we wanted to go see the well – of course we did!  So we went behind the house, climbed over a pile of debris and up some rusty steps, and in a pile of crap was the well – we threw some stuff down it to see how deep it was, and it was deep.  Now I’m not saying that it wasn’t a nice looking well, but the tower guy probably won that contest.

On the way out of our sugar tour, we stopped at a juice stand where a guy was just juicing raw sugar cane – we got the double dose of juiced sugar along with sugar cane.  Highly recommend that experience.   

Back in Trinidad, we visited a well-known pottery making place where the owner is somewhat famous – at least in Cuba.  We saw the owner and saw one guy making pottery on a wheel – but I guess it was lunchtime so everyone was gone. 

There was a cool car back in one of the rooms – apparently from 1917. 

Post pottery, a delicious lunch in a rooftop café and then we toured the town.  Sadly, I cannot recount half of what we were told about the history of Trinidad, but there were some churches, some squares, some museums – I do recall learning that Cuba was the last country to abolish slavery.  For all of you blog readers who have suggested that I become a travel writer – I’m not so good with the details.  I didn’t have a chance to write this day down when it was happening, so I’m going from memory more than a week later!  

These steps lead to the outdoor dance area from last night:

There was a lady statue at the entrance to one of the squares – you are supposed to rub her for good dancing juju.  Based on our dancing experience last night, we rubbed the heck out of her in case we went dancing later that night.

We found a bar that serves the famous “Canchanchara” drink.  Holy deliciousness – it has honey, lemon, and a special kind of alcohol/rum and it is served in little clay cups (made in the pottery place).  The ingredients are on the sign, but as it is all in Spanish, I have no clue what was in it.  I think aguardiente must be Spanish for crack because they were that good. 

This was our final stop before our guide let us loose on the town where we finally got to take some pictures of the cuteness.  Not surprisingly, we also headed to a bakery for pastries and more coffee.  I think these pictures much better depict Trinidad's charm & appeal.

Notice that the .25 CUC coin I'm holding is the exact view of the tower and building we are looking at.

Locals selling their wares on the street:

Old cars and cobblestone:

Dominoes in the street:

 Colorful buildings and horse drawn carts:

We had noticed that many of the streets had water running down the middle and apparently, it is from the leaking pipes under the town that have not/cannot be fixed – so the streets are always wet.  Damon thought it was because everyone likes washing their cars.  By the second day in Trinidad, I’m like, damn – there must be a lot of clean cars here!

I mentioned yesterday that our guide had sadly showed us the ruins of a palace that is family had once inhabited. We were told that the government is currently renovating it and turning it into a hotel.  

Eventually we got back to the Casa and YAY, our shower had a brand new pump, so we were able to take a hot shower that actually showered instead of dripped.  Our evening activity was dinner at a seafood place in a nearby fishing village.  Now I thought it would be a nice romantic last night in Trinidad with my husband sort of dinner, but alas, it was us, our guide and our taxi driver all having that nice romantic dinner!  Our taxi driver did not speak much English, but he enjoyed trying to communicate with us.  So we learned that he has two daughters, one of whom just turned 15 and had her Quinceañera.  As he described it, there is a requirement that the father spend every last penny on this particular event, so he laughingly told us he was basically dead broke.  Turns out his wife is one of the most renowned neo-natal surgeons in the Santa Clara area (where Trinidad is), yet he still has to drive a taxi to make money.  The restaurant had a roaming guitar player who played nice romantic melodies to our table – we were a motley crew, but had an enjoyable dinner.

Home at last.  Exhausted.  Tomorrow we head back to Havana for our last night in Cuba.