Trinidad and music

We sat down outside a bar beside the cathedral, halfway up the steps to the Casa de las Musica, and had a mojito, but I was still feeling down. A band started playing, which started cheering me up, then a very jolly black man came around each table acting the clown, which finally did cheer me up. It's hard to stay miserable when someone's grinning so broadly.



There's a lot of tourist shops in Trinidad selling Che t-shirts and books about the revolution, and stalls in the street selling tablecloths embroidered in the traditional Trinidad style. They're rather nice, so we wandered along choosing one. It was funny - as soon as you expressed an interest in buying a tablecloth all the women tried to show you theirs.

Trinidad is quite an impressive town: the central cobbled area is a UNESCO World Heritage site. All the houses are in different pastel shades, and there's a lovely central square (Plaza Mayor), beautifully kept. The church is at the top of the square.



So after the mojitos we headed back to the casa. We'd decided we were going to stay up past 8pm and crack this time zone thing, but to do that I needed to rest first (grumpiness is no fun). So we went back and read and played with Linda for a while. I tried to make my phone send a message, having discovered I could receive messages here, but to no avail. Then I had a little nap (it would have been longer if the people next door hadn't been so noisy) before dinner.

We had shrimps in tomato sauce (a rather odd combination) with rice and the ubiquitous black beans for dinner. The food wasn't up to Harry and Diane's standards but it did the trick.

After dinner we set out to find the Casa del Trova, the music house recommended to us by the guidebook and our hosts. We spent the evening quite happily in a place we thought was it but found later that it wasn't. Ignorance is bliss.

The music house was outdoors, which got a little nippy at times. The warm-up band were good at first, but got increasingly irritating as we got more impatient for the main act. Eventually the act appeared, all the musicians dressed in white. There were 14 musicians and 9 or 10 dancers. I found the dancers mesmerising. I want a big flouncy white skirt to prance aound in like that!

We went to bed around 11, but it took me quite a while to get to sleep. There were all sorts of noises to contend with: the noisy neighbours (who may well be our hosts), Mum snoring and a cricket hiding behind Mum's side table. We removed the cricket (he won't crick no more) and Mum stopped snoring, but the neighbours went on for some time. I did drop off eventually though, and was pleasantly surprised to find no cockerel nearby when I woke in the morning.