Rice and Beans

The day started off OK with a journey through the Zabata province. It began with flat swampland and brush with cattle roaming the road but gave way to some highly organised and mechanised farming and a huge sugar refinery as we approached Cienfuegos. 

There were also rice paddies, something I didn't expect to see, but then the staple food here is rice and beans so it makes sense. 

Cuban food, while we're on the subject, isn't great. It's not just the fact that every meal is rice, beans and salad with a choice of chicken or pork or fish or if you're near the coast, lobster, it's more to do with taste, or the lack of it. The fish tastes fine, and the lobster, but most main dishes are fried or grilled and Cubans don't seem to use any spices at all. The salads, which I expected to be full of flavour are often bland. It's a real disappointment. 

To the east of Cuba there are the wonderful West Indian flavours - rotis, jerk chicken, pepper pot, Cajun spicy lovely dishes. To the west is Mexico - burritos, chilli, enchiladas, nachos, delicious! Cuba has rice and beans with garlic and a bit of salt and pepper. The one positive discovery is banana crisps. Thinly sliced, deep fried and sprinkled with salt, very tasty, but basically a snack. 

Today we arrived in Trinidad which is a toned down version of Havana but with more art and less pollution. We arrived about lunchtime and the Casa owners network landed us on a first floor room accessed by a staircase that many people might describe as a ladder. No seat on the toilet wasn't a major problem for me but Chris wasn't too happy. Also it was hot and we were hot . . . and a bit tired following the 3 hour journey getting here and just wanted to chill for awhile. With bare concrete and no shade outside this wasn't a Casa where you'd sit out and chill. Our hosts are a lovely, friendly, helpful Cuban family so we smiled, raised eyebrows at one another and headed for the centre of Trinidad, the town plaza. 

The plaza was at the top of the town up a hill in the hottest part of the day. We pounced on the only table in shade at the restaurant/bar and listened to the band - two guitars, bongos, singer and random trumpeter who turned up half way through and just joined in. This helped ease our tetchyness but we then found we couldn't log on to the Wifi which raised the tetchyness level again. No What's App, no emails, no idea what's going on with friends and family. Chris not happy as no pics of Maddie are coming through. Perhaps tomorrow, mañana . . .

We'd booked for two nights here and in other circumstances might have upped and left but just the thought of traipsing the streets in the heat with two big bags was enough to persuade us that we'd be OK. It's got air con and a fan, and a bedside lamp, and a decent shower and we've been fine in far worse places. But to help improve morale I suggested we take a look at La Boca, a small fishing village 5km down the road, where we found a first floor room with a balcony overlooking the beach, and facing the sunset, for the same price as this place and we can have it for 5 days. Result! I then spoiled it all by hailing the roughest sounding, decrepit looking, ancient American 'taxi' driven by two likely lads who, in any other country would probably have driven us off to some remote spot and relieved us of our money, phones, watches and anything else they fancied and ditched us there to walk back to civilisation. But this is Cuba so they just chugged noisily along calling out to any girls on the route who took their fancy, while we bounced around on the rock-hard back seat being slowly suffocated by petrol fumes. Then we couldn't find the casa . . . 

Definitely a rice and beans type of day.