Landed and departed at the city�s own airport and what a small one it was. The smallest airport that I�ve been to in Cuba and the second smallest in the Caribbean. Cienfuegos is a port town sitting on its own large bay, connected to the ocean.

Took a taxi ride to the beach one day (20 minutes from the city) just to check it out. A nice beach with 2 small resorts.

Playa de Rancho Luna

I had a week to get to know the town. Cienfuegos has more than a few good restaurants, one of them being possibly the best restaurant I�ve eaten at in Cuba. The bar scene seemed fairly decent as well.

Anything one needed seemed available in the shops and neighbourhood private tiendas as long as you had the money. As with any Cuban place frequented by tourists, there was some begging and tourist scammin' going on but nothing to get too worked up about. With a good exchange rate, life was seemingly easy for a tourist for whatever I wanted to do. I could eat like a royal King for 25 CDN and beers in bars were the equivalent of $1.50. The town seemed to be well stocked in ice-cream and this kept me happy and chubby.

Fidel at home

Just like Havana, Cienfuegos has its own Prado and Malecon, which are connected to each other leading out to the Punta Gorda neighbourhood. The Prado part is especially long and the Malecon seemed to be broken up into 3 or so different sections. Punta Gorda has some fine looking buildings as does Parque Jose Mart�. Some of that historic World Heritage UNESCO stuff about town.

Malecon

Old Mansion in Punta Gorda

Parque Jos� Mart�

The music scene had its usual Cuban traditional performers and classical guitarists but the real hot show in town was a Rock band called �Bouquet" whom I got to see live practically every other night. They have been around for some 20 years now and have a following of Cubans, Canadians and other tourists alike. In particular, a guy from Sweden really dug them a lot.

Rock band Bouquet

For a mid-sized Cuban city, I quite like Cienfuegos. It is nestled somewheres in-between Trinidad and Santa Clara, some 235 km south/east of Havana. Like the rest of Cuba, the pandemic, consistent power outages and other difficulties have really taken their toll but Cuba is far from finished and hopefully they are on the road to a sufficient recovery. I won�t comment for the locals, but as a tourist, nothing affected me greatly in any negative way to stop me visiting Cuba. Cuba can sometimes be a bit frustrating and odd but as we all know��..

Hermoso edificio and the town street choo-choo hop-on ride