Tour to Trinidad & Cienguegos

We had booked a tour to Trinidad & Cienfuegos prior to arriving into Cuba.  We arranged a private tour through Cuba With Us and were picked up promptly at 7am at the lobby of our hotel.  The reason for such an early start is because Trinidad is located 4 hours away by car, which meant we knew we were in for a long day.  We had a fantastic guide who was able to provide us with some insight into life in Cuba, but I felt very sorry for him as we were all very tired in the car and kept dozing off! 

Since we were driving from one end of the island to the other, we passed a great deal of rural scenery and saw some beautiful plantations – everything from mango to corn and in between.

When we finally arrived into Trinidad, we were immediately met with cobblestone roads and buildings painted in bright, beautiful colours.

Our guide handed us over to the capable hands of a local guide.  He explained that a local guide who lives in Trinidad would be much more familiar with the history and culture of Trinidad.  She took us on an hour long walk around the town and we found out that the entire population of Trinidad was only 65,000 including all of the surrounding rural areas.

We even explored local restaurants, which all seemed to have a museum component to them.  The first floor would be the museum and then the second floor would be the restaurant, and sometimes they would have tables out on the balcony, using up every inch of space they could find.

After a brief tour of the town, we were taken for lunch at a local home, where the grandma served us generous portions of fish, shrimp and lobster and fresh mango juice.  The meal was delicious and for 17CUC per person, it was a much better deal than the meal we had had in Havana a few days earlier.

We then drove about an hour to Cienfuegos where we spent a little bit of time enjoying the square and the market before making the long drive back to Varadero.   

Our tour with Cuba With Us was fantastic and our guide Elvis was very knowledgeable and willing to answer any questions we threw at him.  Our driver also seemed to understand quite a bit of English, as he would speak a little bit here and there, but he would mainly react to what we said.  If you are not opposed to a long tour where much of it is spent in a car, then I would recommend taking a one day tour of Trinidad.  Otherwise, I would recommend trying to split it up into two days so that it isn’t quite as tiring.

Check out Cuba With Us for private tours to Trinidad & Cienfuegos.

For more photos, please see my Photo Gallery of Havana, Trinidad & Cienfuegos.