Interesting times were assured today as we were due to pick up the rental car. It was never going to be straightforward in Cuba, and so it proved to be.
Initially our biggest problem was that we were not going to be able to pick up the car without the internet voucher. This was a problem because on the Internet Access Point computers, you don't have the ability to print. We went and saw a chap called Ronnee at one of the fanciest hotels in town, and he said we could email it to him to print. We tried this, however the access points also don't allow you to download documents. We tried screen capturing and emailing the screen caps to Ronnee, but unfortunately this didn't work as his computer didn't have access to the internet to be able to download the attachments on the email. We ended up taking photos of the screen with my phone and hoped we could just show that.
In the afternoon we went for a walk through the Architecture Museum which was pretty much an old colonial house on the main square, that was restored to be how it was from about 300 years ago. This was a fantastic experience as we had the loveliest old lady who was our guide through the museum - she didn't speak a single word of English, but through a lot of hand gestures and reading and trying to understand her we pretty much got the gist of everything that she was telling us about the interesting architecture of the building. Very cooly, the ceramic tiles for the roof are actually formed from laying the raw clay over the maker's thigh, and this gives it a unique half-moon funnel shape so that when they are placed together on top of each other and upside down they are very effective roofing tiles.
Later, when we were due to pick the car up, we walked up to the office, and it was closed - inexplicably. We had a contact number on the reservation form, so we bought a phone card, and after another hour of stuffing around working out how to dial correctly (it's very complicated in Cuba, even when you know how), I managed to get through to a lady who spoke great English and she told me she'd find out what was happening and I had to call her back in 10 mins. I did this, and she said that we were going to have to go to the other office, which was about a 15 minute walk away. No problem. Off we set, get to the office, and there's no one there either. Then after a few minutes, some guy comes screeching up behind us in a slightly beaten up Geely GS 1.5 CK, and asked us to get in. OK.... He assured us he was from the rental car company and that we would now have to go back to the original office. He would drive us there.
We get to the original office and there is a chap inside now, and we go in there, sort out all the paperwork, and leave with the car we have just arrived in.
We went for a drive to the Beach to just have a look, but it turned out that we were running out of light by this point, and we had been told that it was not a good idea to be on the roads in the dark in Cuba. After seeing the quality of the bitumen and the size of the potholes, we can understand why! Some of the roads in the UK are pretty bad, but they've got nothing on Cuba.
We got back to Trinidad, tucked the car away for the night and went for a walk out into town. We went to a bar called "La Canchanchara" named for the famous drink of the area. Strangely their version of what we had the other night at Davimart was no where near as good.
We had a wander around the town again, and ended up back at San Jose for dinner.
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