For our first trip to Cuba we decided that the two cities we would stay overnight in were Havana and Trinidad. Trinidad is a very different city than Havana. It was made a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1988 and is located in the middle south side of the country. Trinidad was a city that become very important in the sugar trade era because of the location nearing the Valley of the Sugar Mills. The city became very wealthy and thousands of African slaves were brought to the city work and immigrants fled to the to experience the boom. But due to the wealth the city attracted pirates from Jamaica and Tortuga and being located on the water it was a vulnerable city and eventual the economy crashed. It was an isolated colonial city for years and now the main forms of income are tobacco and tourism. You can see how prominent tourism is just walking down the street. Every home has been turned into a hostel or hotel just by offering to rent out their extra room. We also found more people spoke English in Trinidad versus Havana.
Now, how did we get there? We debated on taking the bus but realized that since we had five people headed down to Trinidad we filled a cab and the cost was more but the convenience of being picked up at our house and dropped off was worth it. Our cab down to Trinidad cost 160 CUC and was a five hour drive. A very long five hour drive, we filled the cab to the brim, and it was the hottest day we had yet—a hot sticky ride. We also didn’t eat anything in Havana before we got picked up at 10:30 am so you can see the pictures of the food we ate below. That was the one gas station we passed that had food options. I would highly suggest eating in Havana before. Though the people I was traveling with are not picky eaters we actually couldn’t finish the food. Our sandwiches were frozen and then they heated them up but half the sandwich was still frozen and I don’t even know if you can actually call that pizza. It was an experience. Probably didn’t help that we were out till about 4 am the night before…
I also was the one who booked our Airbnb in Trinidad so I prepped with the address etc. I took the address and put it in Google maps and printed a map and thought I was so prepared, nope! Our host had not sent the actual address so we just had the generic address that led us to the city center, but it was the correct street. So it took us an additional hour to find the house. We luckily had one person who had access to wifi and were able to zoom in on the picture of the front of the house and got the house number and were able to find our spot. Nervous moments here.
After we finally checked in we got to enjoy our roof top with Bucanero beers and a killer sunset!
I don’t want to read your post, what should I know?
- Trinidad is a beautifully colorful colonial city that is a UNESCO Heritage site
- To get from Havana to Trinidad via cab it should cost about 160 CUC (we also tipped about 5 per person)
- The drive from Havana to Trinidad is 5 hours
- Don’t eat gas station food
- Be very prepared with your address if you are booking with Airbnb- Highly suggest staying where we did, host and house were great!
