Our stopover in Carmelo was really just a matter of convenience. We had a boat to catch from here the next day and didn't want to chance a late bus making us miss it.
There are no hostels here, so we had booked ourselves into the cheapest hotel.
Well actually I say cheapest, but really least expensive would be more appropriate, as after our two accommodation splurges in Mendoza and Santiago, this is the most expensive place we have been.
And it was so not worth it.
Hotel Centro - yes I am happy to name and shame - is also the worst place we have stayed. I can forgive the dodgy electrics in the showers in Bolivia, and for the prices, some of the pokey hostel rooms are to be expected, but the problems here were just pure lack of care.
Starting with the door to the room; the bottom pane of glass in the door was broken, and a couple of rather large and sharp looking shards were just left in the frame.
The room was cramped, dark and pokey. The bathroom looked like it may have been fancy when it was put in, but the ceramic toilet seat was broken clean through, so when you sat on it you had to be careful not to get a nasty pinch. There was actually a jacuzzi bath, but it looked like if you used it some very nasty stuff would come out of the holes with the bubbles.
In fairness the sheets and towels were clean. Which is more than can be said for the rest of the room. It wasn't all filthy, it just looked like they quickly clean the obvious areas and then the out of the way bits never get touched. But the real problem was the mould. The bedroom was full of mouldy spots and black patches. You could smell it.
The curtain, which was torn by the way, was covered in it too. Now even if you struggle to control the mould on the walls - and there was no evidence to suggest that they had even tried to - you can wash or replace the curtain. We thought we might change rooms, but I looked at others and they looked no better. We knew that most places were either unavailable or way beyond our budget, so as the bed itself was OK, we decided to bear it for the one night. We stayed out all the rest of the day and evening and literally went back just to sleep.
As to Carmelo itself, well there is not much here either. The square is OK with a nice fountain that when it is lit up at night looks a bit like three candles. There are two attractions advertised in town. The first is the swing bridge, which is hand operated to open the central section.
The other is the old house of Colonel Ignacio Barrios, which is now a cultural centre. We took a quick look at both, but neither filled us with any great excitement. I found it more interesting to watch the sight of the various horse and carts and things like the old truck with a fancy antique looking sofa in the back of it.
Carmelo did have one slightly unusual thing. Its graffiti was on the streets rather than on the buildings. Not sure why, but I suppose it could be considered more considerate that they don't daub their rubbish on people's property. Rather less unusually, we were of course followed everywhere by various dogs.
There were a couple of reasonable places to eat in the square. Both were simple, but had decent, cheap food and they were happy to let us while away our spare hours before we returned to our awful room. We noticed here that people coming into a restaurant will often say 'buen provecho' which is bon appetit, to the customers already there. We had seen this before in Montevideo, but as that guy was dressed like a clown, we figured he was just in character.
In the evening, the restaurant had on an Argentine football match, Olimpo v Boca. We didn't really take much notice of it until the end when it got interesting. It was Copa Argentina match, so a clear result was needed to decide who went through, but at the end of extra time it was still level at 1-1, so it went to penalties. Being English, we know that a penalty shoot out can be entertaining to watch, especially one that doesn't hold the threat that your team will lose. This one was especially good.
Olimpo went first and missed. Boca missed too. Olimpo recovered themselves and scored the next, so did Boca. They both scored the third, and the fourth and the fifth, taking them into penalty sudden death. They both scored the sixth and the seventh.
OK perhaps not so sudden death then. When they had both scored in the eighth, ninth, tenth and eleventh, they had got through the whole team, which is something I have never seen happen before. Starting back through the team, Olimpo had the twelfth saved. So did Boca. On the thirteenth, Olimpo shot wildly over the top, and Boca finally managed to consolidate that by scoring theirs. Final score 1-1 after extra time and 10-11 on penalties.
From Trinidad we took another bus to Camaguey, the third largest city in Cuba and another Unesco site. The city has lasted somewhat longer here than it did in its first location. When established in the early 1500s, it was called Santa María del Puerto del Príncipe and was on the coast. However a never-ending barrage of pirate attacks meant that only about fifteen years later they moved the city to its present site with a new name.
As well as dictating an inland site, the history of pirate attacks influenced the layout of the new city. To confuse any potential marauders it was built with winding alleys and irregular street patterns. There was only one way in or out of the city so if pirates ever got in this far inland they would be trapped, lost and therefore easy prey for the residents.
Apparently a lot of visitors find the layout a problem but we quite liked it. I guess that in many countries, especially in the Americas, the streets are laid out in a grid pattern which is very easy to get around, so this is probably a bit confusing. However having been used to the UK and London's maze of streets in particular, this felt far more natural for us. In fact it made us realise that we had rather missed the haphazard layout and had found the grid system a bit sterile.
Piracy may have been the first problem for Camaguey, but the city later suffered another difficulty with a lack of water. To solve this the residents made large clay pots, called tinajóns to capture rainwater. This gave the city a new nickname, The City of Clay Pots. We heard that there is a story that if you drink water from a girl's personal tinajón, you will fall in love with the girl and never leave her. Another version is that you will fall in love with the city and one day return.
We spent our time in Camaguey wandering around and watching Cuban life go by. It was interesting to see the main shopping street with its mix of a few more modern looking shops alongside the more traditional old fashioned counter shops, where you are served your goods rather than helping yourself. We went into a small supermarket to check out what was available and were amused to see that in the drinks section the racks had exactly the same bottles of drinks in exactly the same order on all of the rows, creating neatly identical columns of alcohol.
A definite thing to do in Camaguey is to see some of its great squares. Plaza de Agramonte is small and cosily formal square with a great bar called Bar El Cambio on the corner. Opened in 1909, this tiny bar has slightly eccentric decoration, including a mural by artist Oscar Lasseria. There was also Cafe Ciudad, built in 1878 which looked quite nice, but played 80s classics the whole time which, though we do like the music, just seemed wrong here.
Plaza San Juan de Dios is a rather more modest square that looks like something out of a western. When we were there there were kids playing football until the rain started belting down when they scattered and we ducked into a place for lunch.
But I think that my favourite square was Plaza del Carmen. While tourists certainly come here, it was in a less obviously touristy area. The buildings are pretty, whether well restored or endearingly ramshackle, and the square still looks traditional despite the craft shops and restaurants that are springing up around it. The added interest comes from the statues depicting people in their daily life.
There is someone with a tinajon and a group of ladies sitting having a chat, with a spare place on their bench for you to join them, and a man reading his newspaper. As we looked at the latter one, an old man on a nearby bench came of to us. He told us that he was the person who modelled for this statue years ago.
Initially we were cynical and thought this was just a way to start a conversation that would eventually lead to a request for money, but as it was at least a more original ploy, we were happy to go along with it and would have given him some small change. But I am pleased to say it seems we were wrong to doubt him. He never asked us for any money but just had a nice chat with us. And when he sat next to the figure on the bench, the resemblance was quite striking, so we like to think he was telling us the truth.
