Gimme some sugar. Cuban chronicles. Day 10.

Today, it's the turn of knowing one of the main attractions in Trinidad, the Valley of Ingenios. The top spot of this area is Manaca Iznaga, which we decided to skip and focus on the other two spots.

The tower at San Isidro de los Destiladeros.

Our first stop was San Isidro de los Destiladeros, the only one of these establishments that still has remains and evidence of the sugar production of colonial times, and one of those places that you need to know, even though I have contrasting information about it. I'm going to start by the A version, that is the one I was told by one of the official guide tours from the place. According to this version, the Spaniard "Lords" (the quotations marks are part of my judgement only) were true evil beings (I'm also using this expression to avoid using another one if you know what I mean). The whole sistem was planned to perpetuate slavery. On the one hand, slaves were allowed to live with their families so they would be "happier" (who could be happy like this, right?), but also, this way, the slaves' children would also be slaves belonging to the master. Besides, the slaves were brought from different regions with different languages so they couldn't communicate between them and rise themselves.

Now, the B version, that came from a Cuban historian who texted me through comments in another travel blog and asked me to read my chronicles in my old blog. Even though he liked my vision of the island, he told me that the thing about the different languages of the slaves wouldn't be entirely true. I'd love to give you more details about this but those texts are lost somewhere in my messenger.

The next stop was Guáimaro, where, unlike San Isidro, the production area isn't there anymore, but the housing area is well conserved. The house still has original frescos, pieces of furniture and artifacts from colonial times. The great anecdote from this visit happened when we were at the house chappel, and there was a Bible over the pulpit (well, I think it was a Bible, it may have been another book, I don't know, forgive this humble atheist) that looked really, really old. At one point my dad, the guide and myself looked in the direction of the book and R was going through the book. Thankfully it didn't tear apart, but in her defense I've got to say that there was no "don't touch" sign. Crisis moment.

Guáimaro

The famous book.

Detalles arquitectónicos de Guáimaro.

Next to the main house there's a small place where you can eat and have a nice cup of coffee, grown right there. While we rested and tried their coffee, we stayed chatting with the locals until we went back to town.

Coffee beans. My dad brought some of those back home to plant them, never knew if he did it.

We didn't stop at Manaca Iznaga and its viewpoint because it has similar characteristics than the ones we did visit plus a whole touristic show that we didn't care for. I just regret not going up to the tower as the one in San Isidro was under repair. We continued our way to Trinidad because we also wanted to go to some of the museums in town.

I don't want to leave this place.

After a stop at home to schedule our next days in the island, the m.useum afternoon started. The first one in the list was the Archeological Museum, and it was the last one too. We also wanted to go to the Historic Museum but I don't remember if we ran out of time or it was closed for some other reason, but I didn't get to know it and go up its tower. We also couldn't enter to the Cathedral, because they were in service and then there was a mass (I don't know the diference, again, apologize this humble atheist).

These are all from our last afternoon walking around Trinidad. As you can see, I'm having trouble picking only a few.

7pm, oficially nighttime. Our last night in Trinidad. We stopped for dinner at a place called Lis, where the waiter brought us some courtesy drinks that he was preparing as a test for his tourism academy. The drinks had to be sweet because they were supposed to be for women. Whaaat? Still? Look mister, I regularly drink beer and fernet, both bitter. Anyway, it tasted good, like jellow with rum. What a good idea for these lockdown days, if only I had jellow.

Of course there was music, the weird thing would be if there wasn't. It would also be weird if nobody sang Guantanamera or Chan Chan. I dind't like so much his version of Chan Chan. After that I thought that I've should taped at least a short part of these songs every time I heard them and then make a video of that compilation. Well, too late, next time.

The night, and our stay in Trinidad couldn't end in another place that wasn't the Music Stairs. The variety was wide, from a band that looked like the Uruguayans Bola 8, to Afro music, so similar to our candombe and of course, salsa. I started drinking Cuba Libres again, at last. Wish me luck with that.

And to end the night, the full moon from the balcony.

See you next time Trinidad. It was a pleasure.

*You can read the original version in Spanish of this post here.