We stopped off in the Cubatur office and booked two seats in a Viazul minibus direct from Trinidad to Vinales, door to door! I don't know if it'll be quite as comfy as the coach but it'll be much faster - a journey of six hours instead of nine.
We popped into the church in Plaza Mayor. It has 11 altars, funded by a Benedictine monk who, well, rather liked altars. It's quite nice, but not worth much more than a five minute visit.
Worth a considerably longer visit was the main museum in the Plaza Mayor. Unusually this museum was not about the revolution. Instead it featured immaculately preserved furniture and ornaments from various wealthy local houses. But the pieces fitted so well together that we didn't realise they weren't all from the one house until we read it afterwards in the guidebook.
We were shown around by a really sweet lady who told us which country everything was from and what it was made of. The stuff was from all over the world - England, France, Germany, Czechoslovakia, Bolivia, and of course Cuba. What was a little surprising, though, was that they had Italian rather than Cuban marble (for example). Oh, there was a 1 1/4 ton marble bathtub. There were stunning views of the entire area, from the mountains to the sea, and across the Plaza Mayor. Unusually for a museum house, it felt like a house I would have enjoyed living in. I was impressed that there wasn't a single chip out of any of the items, not even the crystal glasses or the porcelain cabinet.
We also did useful things like withdrawing money in the bank, posting postcards and buying water.
At lunchtime we headed for Playa Ancon, the local resort with the best beach around. I was worried on our way there that it'd be miserable because it was cloudy and windy (again! We're not good at choosing beach days). But the beach is on a peninsula and slopes towards the sea, and down there it was perfectly calm. We set up camp on a couple of sun loungers (2CUC each) and took turns going for a quick swim. The water was that lovely turquoise and the sand was very pale - so typically Carribean.
The water still wasn't bathtub temperature but it was very lovely and completely clear, so no fear of jellyfish. The sea got neck-deep very quickly so there was no faffing around walking for miles to get deep enough to swim. And a man from the hotel served us drinks where we sat. All in all, very pleasant, although I'll have to dock marks for the distance I had to walk to get to the nearest toilet. Playa Ancon, neuf points.
We walked as far as the marina to enquire about snorkelling, but it was all closed up so we'll go back tomorrow to see if they're open then.
It did start getting pretty cold in the afternoon so we weren't too upset to leave when our taxi driver arrived at 4. We'll go back tomorrow, though.
When we got back to Trinidad we planned to check our e-mails but found that there was a power cut. Four hours later there's still a power cut. I haven't been able to have a shower yet so I'm still all salty and sandy. It was alright initially but now it's dark and there's no street lights, which is unnerving me a little. But we've found a restaurant with a generator. Our meal was unexceptional but we've stayed to dring wine, read, and listen to the most wonderful musicians. The lady singing has a very clear, bell-like voice and the man is playing guitar beautifully. We've bought a CD.
We walked home in the still-dark streets (rather unnerving, especially since the torch faded very quickly). The stars were amazingly clear - that was probably the least light pollution I've ever experienced. Trinidad is small and isolated anyway, so when the lights go off there's just no light anymore. We walked part of the way with a friendly Canadian and I felt a little bad when we abandoned him to the darkness on reaching our house.
When we got in Alfredo was feeling chatty so we communicated in broken Spanish talking about Europe, Aeroflot, and religious wars. Lovely, lovely man, but that kind of communication is exhausting so it was good to go to bed.
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