Onwards and westwards

Goodness, today this computer allows me to write here. (The whole internet-thing seems very arbitrary sometimes!)

I've been here over two weeks now, and am beginning to get my head round organising myself. There's a wonderful system of 'casas' - local families providing rooms for passing tourists. Once in the system (and that was a bit of a challenge) it's wonderful - each landlady (for want of a better term) phones for a 'casa' in the next town you're visiting and off you go. I've been made wonderfully welcome, in spite of my rubbish Spanish.

From Camaguey, with its narrow labyrinth of streets - many of which echo with the din of builders, as much of the town is being restored - I headed west, stopping in Sancti Spiritus (often nothing more than a whistle-stop for the tour groups) and then Santa Clara, to pay obligatory homage to Che Guevara.

And so to Trinidad - there are back streets where local people live and work, of course, but the central plaza and its surrounding buildings are given over to tourists. It is lovely - the sun shines through palm trees and glints from the tower of the church, and ponies clop along cobbled streets. Tourist-heaven, and I've no way of knowing what sense local people make of us wandering around peering in their doorways, but it's a great place to rest for a day or two!

And the music Trinidad breathes music. That glorious dialogue between Spanish and African traditions that has given us salsa, and rumba. Music is not cerebral here. It lives in bones and blood and muscles. Footsteps are bongos on the cobbles. Trumpets echo from the walls. It´s gutsy, and passionate ... ah, the music ... I shall be jigging round my kitchen for weeks when I get home!