Comment on Cuba’s welcoming old town of Trinidad, a haven far from Havana

Horses’ hooves clatter along lantern-lit cobblestone lanes, barely audible above the salsa beat pulsing from restaurants and bars. Perched overlooking the Caribbean on the south coast halfway across the island, it was one of the first cities founded in Cuba by the Spaniards in 1514, a colonial gem with an old town that immerses you in another century. An added bonus is a nearby uncrowded crescent of white beach, the best on this coast, with warm turquoise waters and icy cocktails. Though there’s a sense that this entire authentic, Starbucks-free country will change quickly, in fact only a tiny fraction of Cuba’s 3 million to 4 million annual visitors today venture outside Havana and the nearby beach resort of Varadero, with its string of all-inclusive behemoths. Trinidad, with its sparse tourist traffic and cheap prices, has plenty of unique Cuban culture that isn’t as likely as the capital to change its nature as diplomatic relations normalize, making it worth traveling the 197 miles southeast, beyond Havana, to the province of Sancti Spiritus. The landscape is rolling hills and rural, with Cuban cowboys herding goats and skinny cows, and fields being readied for sugarcane planting by ox-drawn plow, a giant step backward from the tractors that worked this land until the Soviet Union’s fall. Ours is the Hotel Ancon, a sturdy relic of the concrete-loving Soviet-era, retro-cool 1985 angular architecture festooned with a rainbow of kitschy Latin colors. Yet it’s surprisingly welcoming and relaxed, from the band and dancers who greet every bus to the cheery bow-tied bartender who unhurriedly mashes mint leaves into a fragrant pulp at the bottom of my mojito. The quality of Cuba’s three- or four-star hotels would not live up to that of their American counterparts in this country’s strapped economy, but the rooms are clean and comfortable and the buffet spread surprisingly good. [...] the largely European, South American and Canadian vacationers are here for sun and sand, snorkeling, tennis, cheesy nightly entertainment extravaganzas, and the all-inclusive rum-drenched drinks … and for the crepe guy who serenades us with songs at breakfast. After unwinding on the beach for three days, we toss our overnight bags into a 1959 German Opel Kapitän taxi and head on the 15-minute drive into Trinidad for a couple of nights in a casa particular, a trip that also makes a nice bike ride. Trinidad, with its remarkable rows of colorful colonial buildings from the days when this region boomed with the sugarcane trade, allows you to sleep in the 18th or 19th century: There is no car traffic in the hilly old town, which became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1988 — just tricycle cabs, horse-drawn carts and the occasional horseback cowboy, Texas-style boots, hats ’n’ all. The taxi drops us outside the zone, and we walk narrow cobblestone streets past the grand cathedral, where a band is jamming on the sidewalk amid the aroma of roasting chicken. Manuel Castillo swings opens his house’s massive, ancient, bright-blue timber doors and welcomes us into Casa Colonial el Patio, where he and his wife, Lisbeth, rent three rooms. A breeze blows in from the high-walled patio out back that gives the inn its name, a tropical garden with the occasional gecko and hummingbird, where we make ourselves at home in hammocks with a cold cerveza Cristal. Lisbeth creates a classic langoustine — lobster — feast that we enjoy with a cold bottle of Chilean wine beneath the twinkling lights, dangling mangos and Tarzan-caliber vines of the patio. Breakfast, too, is in the bird-chirping shade of the garden, a wonderful spread of high-octane Cuban coffee, homemade bread and jam, in-season papaya and fresh eggs supplied by nearby chickens whose mate woke us up earlier that morning. The main square, Plaza Mayor, has a towering cathedral and the town’s best museum, Museo Romantico, where aristocratic antique furnishings gathered from surrounding sugar estates — including a 1.5-ton marble bathtub — are on display in the lavishly restored 1808 mansion of a former sugar baron. The highlight of the museum visit, though, is the climb up 119 rickety wooden stairs to the top of the yellow-and-white bell tower that is Trinidad’s trademark for a stunning panorama all the way to the beaches. Trombones, trumpets, drums and guitars belt out tunes in the hands of small street bands on sidewalks, in squares and urban parks. Some of the best jamming takes place outside the UNESCO zone in Parc Cépedes amid a no-frills, unrestored neighborhood with a cigar factory and tiny markets where Trinitarios hand over ration cards in exchange for meat and vegetables. [...] the epicenter is the alfresco Casa de la Música at the top of a broad stone staircase alongside the cathedral, where top bands have everyone sweating on a dance floor under the stars. Stunning 1745 colonial residence turned into a three-room casa with tranquil garden patio out back. Most beach hotels are booked on an all-inclusive — flight, room, meals, alcoholic beverages — weekly basis through an airline or travel agent.