Trinidad

Further east on the south coast road lies the ancient town of Trinidad. You know at once that it's ancient because the streets are entirely cobbled. And also because the Rough Guide informs us that the town celebrated its 500th anniversary in 2014 (it was originally a gold mining town but that dried up pretty quickly). Saga dropped us off at one end of town, the intention being that we would walk through the centre and out the other side thereby avoiding the contraflow of other tour groups who walk in and then back out the same way. Looking back over the first long street was somewhat reminiscent of an old Hovis advert. It got a bit embarrassing when we were encouraged to peer into the narrow openings of people's terraced homes until you realised that they were, in fact, local shops. One sold straw hats, another vegetables, and one was a distribution centre for those ration cards I described earlier. Cobbles are all fine and archaic but after an hour they become hard on those loose collections of bones I call feet. So, upon reaching the first of the old cobbled squares (that had unfortunately been given over to a flea market selling tourist tat) our guide directed us to a bar to recover where, you've guessed it, they had a band.

The main square of Trinidad is an attractive, jaunty affair called the Plaza Mayor. It is surrounded by clean, brightly painted cafes, museums and churches dominated by a rectangular garden in it's centre that is unusual in that it does not have a statue of a revolutionary hero. It is said that the local kids congregate here in the evenings with

a bottle of rum, have a good time, play music, and completely fail to destroy the ornaments or leaves tons of litter. Amazing place. Of course, all this might have something to do with the fact that this is a UNESCO-protected part of the city, Trinidad being a world heritage site. We had a buffet lunch just off the Plaza and then visited the Museo de Historia Municipal (where I was given a sharp rebuke for playing with ye olde rocking chair). This place did have a loft which, if you were prepared to navigate a spiral staircase and a ladder and give way to the crowds coming down, would lead you to a tower and great views of the city.

The next day we left Cienfuegos for our final destination, Varadero. Of course, no Saga coach trip is complete without a few stops. Today's subject was Che Guevara. Now I don't know about you but Che's portrait was all over the place when I was growing up, mostly in psychedelic technicolour, alongside posters of Jimi Hendrix. So much so that I truly thought he was in the band. Turns out he was hero of the revolution over here, mostly for his tactical guerilla genius but also for the purity of his socialist beliefs. He died early in 1967 when a bit of revolutionary activity in Bolivia ended badly. They didn't locate his burial site until 1997 when his body was exhumed and returned to a town called Santa Clara (where he achieved his most famous victory for the revolution back in 1958). This is where we went next to visit the Complejo Monumental Ernesto Che Guevara, a very somber mausoleum (you really do have to take this one seriously) attached to a museum of the man's life. I leave you with this image outside the museum . . .