Day 9: Mambo de la Luna, Salsa de la Casa, Trinidad de Cuba

Today was all about water. After a huge breakfast at our awesome casa, Hostal Ramirez aka Casa Leoslinda y Reinier, we were bundled into a taxi to be taken to Trinidad’s famed Playa Ancon, or Ancon beach. As beaches go, it’s nice. A bit touristy, but currently it’s the off-season so there’s probably not the same level of service, i.e. locals coming up and offering to get all manner of food, drink, whatever. In the two hours we were there, I was offered a lot of pizza, but only a couple of times, drinks (and the first time was when we were just arriving). The second offer was from a guy I thought may also be the lifeguard, who promised coconut water with or without rum, and he was both true to his word and quite generous with the rum (but for 5CUC I’d expect no less).

As beaches go, it’s nice. I guess coming from Western Australia, where there are so many really good beaches, the gentle lapping of the waves, the generally clear water, I’ve been spoilt to the point that a beach really has to be impressive to be remarkable. It was cool just sitting under the palm fronds, with nothing to do but watch the crabs clean sand out of their burrows. Which is pretty impressive, I’m not exactly sure how they do it, but we had a couple of crabs nearby that would appear from their burrows, flick a bunch of sand out, and then disappear back into their burrow and repeat. I could happily watch them do this for hours.

I can now say I’ve swum in the Carribean Sea.

After our beach expedition, we headed back to the casa where our hosts had promised to cook us some real, regular Cuban food. We just sat back while it was cooking, taking in the incredible aromas before we were invited to take a seat at the dining table. They made us the local cocktail, a combination of overproof rum, honey and lemon, like a cold version of the hot toddy, but wonderfully refreshing in today’s heat. First course was sopa, in this case frijole sopa with arroz to add, so we got our rice and beans that way. Next was three whole, large roasted chicken legs, served with vegetables. Roast chicken rarely tastes so good, this was full of good, simple flavours, some seasoning, cooked just right. The vegetables also tasted great, from the potatoes seasoned and with rosemary, to the warm salsa of other vegetables. Again simply prepared, with some seasoning, but the vegetables were cooked just right and had good flavour.

Just when we thought we’d explode from this feast, out came some vanilla icecream with a caramel sauce, which finished everything off well.

After this feast, we had time to lie down before that dreaded moment arrived: the salsa lesson. Two hours of having to coordinate all four limbs in significant humidity (a decent thunderstorm hit the town about 20 minutes after the lesson finished), having a slim dance teacher who was probably doing the salsa at the age of 3 gently berate me for not getting the basic steps first time around (and there’s one move that took me quite a while to get, but I got there), all the while trying to keep up with L who takes to any new dance like a natural; it was hard work. In the end I did okay, I managed to fumble through the basics to the point where I could at least look like I was enjoying myself, rather than focussing on where the hell my feet were at any point in time.

Salsa lesson: tick. Done. Take that Cuba, you can’t crush the mighty capitalist imperialists through dance moves alone.

Having survived the salsa, we moved to head up the hill for a drink or two and some food to celebrate,however had to ostpone for about half an hour while the thunderstorn dumped a bunch of rain on the town. Trinidad, as an old town, doesn’t really have storm drains, it basically works on a gravity system where the water flows down and eventually away, so after the rains there’s a decent current coming down the street: up hill became upstream.

First stop was a cafe that makes decent coffee. Yesterday I had a white coffee with 7yo Havana Club rum (okay, but I think I’d have preferred to just sip on coffee and rum in separate cups), today I just went for an iced coffee. This was very decent, just the thing for the humidity.

Then we headed to what is basically a pub, as I figured I should at least try one of Cuba’s beers. I went for Cristal, which as a lager-style does an okay job. At least it’s not an IPA.

Then we tried to get dinner at San Jose but there was a queue, so we went to their sister restaurant, which has an italian theme. Their shrimp quesadilla, cooked in a wood-fired pizza oven is very good, as are there stuffed tostones.I took the opportunity to try the Ron de Santiago 11yo, a very decent sipping rum well worth seeking out.

Then it was back to the casa. Tomorrow’s our last full day in Cuba: we’re hitting the road at about 9am, heading to Santa Clara for Che Guevara’s tomb, and will be back in Havana in time for a late dinner.