Day 195 to 196 - Sweet times

Trinidad

Day 195

Today we had signed up to go on a tour of the Valle de los Ingenios, or the Valley of the Sugar Mills. This is a bit amusing (to us anyway) since Australia has a big sugar industry and we have never bothered to visit anything related to it back home. We quickly learnt that Cuba no longer has a sugar industry, since production had declined over the years, and the old equipment couldn't be replaced because of the political situation, so the government ordered that the land be used for more productive crops such as corn.

The tour was interesting as we visited some of the old sugar homesteads and learnt about the sugar production techniques that were based completely on slave labour. Each plantation had a large tower with a huge bell on the top, kind of like a church tower. The overseers would watch the slaves from the towers and ring the bell whenever someone wasn't working hard enough or tried to escape.

After visiting a few sites the tour ended up back in town at the ceramics place we had visited yesterday, so we left it there and walked back to our casa, the guide seemed a little unhappy about it but she didn't stop us.

Day 196

We had no real plans for today, we'd seen much of the town already and it was also really hot. We started with a visit to the cadeca (money changer) to get some more Cuban currency but it was closed, we also tried again later in the day but still no luck.

We paid a visit to the Museum of History and climbed the tower for some nice views of the town, by the time we finished that the streets were almost empty, probably a combination of the heat and it being around lunchtime. We'd noticed in most of Cuba (as well as in Central and South America) that the streets get quiet from around midday, picking up much later in the afternoon, though today in Trinidad it seemed quieter than normal.

We decided to take a cue from the locals and escape the heat, so it was back to our air-conditioned casa for a while before heading out in the evening to enjoy the (slightly) cooler air and the more happening atmosphere.