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Trinidad
City, Cuba, a poem in each stone
In Trinidad it seems that the time stopped in
1514, when the Spanish conquerors founded this
city, named Nuestra Senora de la Santisima
Trinidad. Trinidad, as the Cubans call it, is
a poem in each of the stones that make up its
narrow back streets, on which the past moves
along, in the form of a venerable grandfather,
who has just knitted his wicker baskets to
sell in the Plaza Mayo. And the present makes
its debut, in a young man, who revs up his
motorcycle before the curious looks of his
fellow city residents and the hundreds of
tourists, who every day fill the center of the
city with their different languages.
Trinidad is the precious wood found in the
entrances oh homes and windowsills, brass
doorknockers, iron artistically shaped in
grills and gratings, ceramists’ masterpieces
in the form of red tile roofs, and
architecture that reflects the opulence or the
humidity of the city’s first residents.
In 1988, UNESCO proclaimed the city of
Trinidad and the Valle de los Ingenios to be a
World Heritage site. In the past, the sugar
industry experienced a rapid development in
this region, thanks to the richness of the
land.
Musicians and artisans offer their best
performances to each visitor to this colonial
city, which Diego Velazquez called Manzanilla,
or Camomile, in recollection of the city of
the same name in Huelva, Spain; or perhaps
because of the aroma of the plant of the same
name, which has healing powers that the
aboriginal inhabitants were already familiar
with and used before the arrival of the
Spanish conquerors. |
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