Manaca Iznaga

A birthday breakfast of coffee and tostadas at Don Pepe, though unfortunately Café Helado was not available. I tried an alternative concoction call Café Bombon instead – a mixture, I think, of coffee, crushed ice and condensed milk – not quite as good but pretty decent all the same… Then we went to see our new friend Rosie, at Cubatours, to sort out the remainder of our Trinidad activities – tomorrow the jungle, today the sugar plantations! She arranged a taxi, that took us, first, to a mirador with a glorious view down to the coast on one side and into the Valle de los Ingineos on the other. Once the Valley had 70 sugar ‘factories’ (until various factors, including the end, finally, of slavery in the region bought an end, by and large, to production there) and now it has enough evocative towers and ruins to make for a very interesting visit. We went to San Isidoro, where a very good English-speaking guide showed us around the plantation ruins and then – view another view and cold drink stop – to Manaca Iznaga, where the site of the largest plantation in the valley is still marked by the hacienda and a very tall tower  - of course, the more slaves a plantation had to keep watch over the bigger tower it needed from which to do so; it’s weird that these beautiful structures are the legacy of that… And back to town for another Café Bombon, after all it is my birthday – still no helado though, maybe it was all just a beautiful dream…