Vinales

Monday Feb. 22

We had breakfast at our Casa Pellagra, and were off to meet our guide for a two hour tour of the area. Happy to see it was a taxi and not a bus full of tourists we climbed in and off we went our little adventure. The first stop was the Mural De La Prehistoria. At first I thought wow, how did the Indians do that, but soon realized it was something a local artist had painted on the wall to represent the Indians that had lived in the caves nearby. Pretty gullible right? Our next stop was a cave walk. There were several options for this experience including true spelunking on your belly with a headlight. NOT ME! We agreed the walkable one was more our speed.  The walk down into the cave had steps, and rock walkways. Walking sideways and ducking were required at times. I couldn't help but wonder if there was a size restriction for this as we are fairly lean and had to squeeze through a spot or two. As in other caves that I have visited I expected to arrive in a large cavern where a guide would shut the lights off to give us a feel of just how dark it is in a cave. To my surprise our last steep decent of stairs led to a rivers edge.  Soon a boat arrived to pick us up and take us for a short river ride then out of the cave. We docked at an outside café, where Tom was enjoying a beer. Oh, guess I didn't mention that he didn't go with us.Our final stop was a tobacco farm. We watched cigars being rolled and purchased about 20 as they were much cheaper than in town. Probably because they were not yet wrapped in plastic or banded. Tom and I chatted with the two gentlemen in the drying barn who spoke English. They explained that the government receives 80% of every sale and the farm 20%. He went on to say that they had cigars the government didn't know about and could sell them to us for a good price. After explaining that we didn't smoke and had already purchased enough for gifts we thanked them for their information and rejoined Kathy and Vic. Soon we were back in town. Because we were only on an overnight stay we did not have a chance to visit the local rum factory. We were told it is the sweetest rum in Cuba. Unfortunately we couldn't find it in town either. We were told it was a small plant and the tourist purchase so much at the factory the stores are unable to secure any. The gal at the tourist office secured a taxi ride for us back to Marina Hemingway. This time it was in a government owned taxi which was quite a bit more comfortable. It was a great 24 hours but I wished we could have stayed longer.

                              Although this mural looks as if it was painted by early Indians it was not.  It was painted by a local artist to depict the caves the Indians lived in in the area.

                                          Where we came out of the cave on the boat

                                                 Beautiful mountain scenery

                We were taken to an overlook to see the mountains. It also overlooked this very nice resort

                                 This guy was trying to sell rides on his ox, I passed.

                                                             Explaining to us the rolling process

                                                The drying house for the tobacco

                                        It takes 3 months for the tobacco to mature, and 3 months to dry

 

Tobacco leaves hanging to dry

                                                      Very very dry leaves

                                             Bundles of tabacco leaves drying

                                      once dried it is bundled like this then sent to the nearby tobacco factory

                                                 more really old playground equipment

                                           A public grocery store for the Cubans to claim their monthly rations of rice and beans. It is not true that the Cubans are starving. They are provided housing and food. But the food is very plain staples, rice, beans, powdered milk.

                 Most of the Cubans had cell phones! Time is purchased on cards. Kathy stood in line with locals and visitors alike for two hours to try and buy a phone card. Cubans can also get a few minutes of computer time in here.

   Our taxi home. He had a usa tree smellie hanging from his mirror. The roads as you can see were very narrow. If a car breaks down he just lifts his hood and starts working on it and you have to go around. One car in front of us stopped at a stop sign got out walked over to a little store, bought something to drink and returned to his car. Drivers in the states would have had a melt down on their horn. We just patiently waited, the taxi driver just chuckled.