Vinales, Cuba Adventures—October 2018--Part 2

Our minivan would take us about 100 miles west of Havana to the UNESCO World Heritage site with its rich farmlands that grow a variety of crops, especially tobacco and coffee.  Our highlight of this visit would be a horseback ride out to the tobacco farmers drying shed.

In between torrential rainstorms on our way, we stopped at San Diego de Los Banos for our visit to an old thermal bath, spa, and recuperation center.  Our guide indicated that the Cuban government provides therapeutic services for all Cubans free of charge.

Following our visit to the Spa, we crossed town to the nearby Tobacco factory where we saw scores of women rolling the inner part of the cigars as well as where they received,  aged, and sorted the tobacco leaves.  

They come into the factory in large bundles and then are opened.  The leaves are then spread out and then set up so the tobacco leaves reach the correct humidity so that the leaves are pliable for the women to size and then roll.

We then visited, Pedro, who made finishing cigars with the final “capo” leaf.  We then all tried his creations with mixed results.

We then made our way to visit and have lunch at the artist, Miguel Antonio Remedios whose art studio was in La Guira National Park  Part of his mission is to have a community space to teach art classes and folkloric music to kids.  Judy is posing with the portrait she bought from him.  My favorite picture is the one with the ballerina with the huge shoes on point. 

We continued on to our destination of Vinales where our host, Dunia, would greet us and arrange for our accommodations at her place and two other casa particulars.  On the way, we saw numerous farmers' fields of vegetables and tobacco being plowed by pairs of oxen.  

It had just stopped raining as we got out of our minivan taxi.  Erik, Dan, and I were staying at El Cowboy’s casa particular.  Our host, El Cowboy, also named Carlos greeted us with some welcomed Cervezas as he showed us to our rooms in a very, very pink home.

The horseback ride through all of the farms to the tobacco barn was beautiful, especially since yesterday’s rains had refreshened everything, but made the going a bit muddy.  

We were first given an explanation of how the farmers harvested the tobacco crops and then dried them out.  The farmers are allowed to keep 10% of the tobacco harvest and are allowed to keep the best for themselves as well as the vegetables they grow.

Some of us bought the bunches of local cigars with a special formula of lemons, herbs, and other spices infused into the cigars which were wrapped with a palm leaf.

Coffee plantation presentation

For a dinner at Dunia’s, we got to learn and participate in cooking the dinner meal during a big thundershower that shook the home.  We tasted two types of root vegetables along with marinaded chicken and pork.  

Other servings were the Moor and Christian—black beans and rice, and midwestern style over-cooked beans.  We lost power a few times before dinner was finished because of a peal of violent thunder and lightning storm. 

On another evening when we tried the local restaurant, we discovered a local nightclub where they not only played dance music—some of us may have even braved the dance floor to try out our new samba dance moves, but then they started a dance performance.  It too was interrupted for about 10 minutes by a power outage.  The dancing then resumed as we left for our rooms for the night.  

In the morning we drove to a beautiful white sand beach called Cayo Jutias about 65 km northwest of Vinales on the Gulf of Mexico.  Dunia and her husband, Luis, would meet us at a nearby cove of trees for a BBQ.   

Apparently, the Cuban government does not want the locals to use the tourist facilities we had which included a bathhouse, restaurants, beach chairs and umbrellas, and boats that would take you snorkeling to the nearby sea star beach, or diving at other sites.

It was then on to Matanzas, a budding artist enclave where we learned they were rehabbing the waterfront walks and walking streets filled with artists' workshops and galleries.

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