Cuba Guide
Trinidad and Sancti Spíritus
Museo de la Lucha Contra Bandidos
Address: A block north of Plaza Mayor, where Fernando Echerrí meets Piro Guinart
Opening time: Tues– Sun 9am–5pm
Price: $1CUC
The building housing the Museo de la Lucha Contra Bandidos is also host to the dome-topped yellow- and white-trimmed bell tower that's become Trinidad's trademark image. The tower is part of the eighteenth-century church and convent, known respectively as the Iglesia and Convento de San Francisco de Asís, which previously stood on this site. Even if the museum's contents don't appeal to you, it's well worth paying the entrance fee to climb up the rickety wooden staircase to the top of the tower, which has a panoramic view over the city and across to the hills and coastline. Down in the museum itself, displays initially cover the Revolution, in particular the struggles and battles that took place locally between 1956 and 1958 in what was then Las Villas province. A larger part of the museum is concentrated on the counter-revolutionary groups – the bandidos, or bandits – that fought Castro's army during the years immediately following his seizure of power in 1959. The most striking exhibit is in the central courtyard, where a military truck and a motorboat mounted with machine guns stand as examples of the hardware employed by and against the bandidos in their struggle to overthrow the revolutionary government. There's no shortage of detail when it comes to charting the conflict between the two sides, much of which took place in the nearby Sierra del Escambray, but the maps, military equipment and endless mug shots become a little repetitive. It's better to spend more time in the first few rooms, containing dramatic and compelling photographs of the rebel war – including shots of fatigue-clad Fidel and Che – and the student struggle between 1952 and 1959.