We woke up early in our casa of Trinidad, had breakfast and went to the Cubatur office, the meeting point for the organized tour to Topes de Collantes.
It started with a ride in an old Russian army truck converted into a 20 passengers vehicle. We had 10km to the bottom of the mountain range where the road suddenly changed inclination. It is steep, very steep and it keeps going and going until a view point. From this view point you have a fantastic view over the city, the Caribbean sea and the zig zag road up to the mountain. We stopped at a local coffee shop to learn how coffee was done 100s of year ago.
Then finally the parking for the hiking trail is there in front of us. Yeah!
We were told it was a very difficult 5km trail. I was asking myself how could 5km be difficult when I’m used to do 20km? Looking at the other 12 persons in the bus; some people running out of breath by going up and down from the truck and other walking around with sandals… either some of them will suffer or I will be bored.
The trail started very easy with a soft descent of 1 km, gentle uphill for 500 meters, a coffee plantation on the flat section and a very steep downhill for more than 500 meters. Once at the bottom of the valley, the view on the waterfall was gorgeous. It is called Vegas Grande. There is a small pond where you can even take a bath. When it was time to go, and people were aligning to go up, I waited for another 5 minutes, started my timer, and ran the entire section and waited at the top. Now, I can almost feel like I did a difficult hike. Needless to say that Hiking is not in Cubain culture, the shortest distance and easier way is always better…
We had a lunch, which was included in the tour, before heading back to Trinidad, again in the old Russian truck. It was fun! However, it was different for Tina who just started a migraine while there was still 15km to do in the noisy/windy/shaking sitting spot on top of the truck. She made it to the casa for a 1 hour nap.
My blog was up to date, and Tina felt better, so we headed to a restaurant for our last dinner in Trinidad.
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