Viñales

Saturdays are dedicated to exploring the island and traveling outside the city to get glimpses of rural Cuba. Yesterday we drove two hours to Viñales, a pueblo in the province of Pinar del Río known for its caves and mogotes, sharp geological features that look like extra steep mini-mountains. All seven of us piled in Jefe’s six-passenger van, and for four hours guess who got to sit in the newly installed seventh seat – comprised of two cloth-covered planks strategically balanced between the two bucket seats. Yours truly. We set off, and just before leaving the city limits, Jefe (our eccentric driver whom we call “boss”) pointed out Raul Castro’s compound. I waved.

Jefe:

On the interstate, the badly paved roads continuously jolted us out of our seats and threw us back down for two hours. Thank god I had been sick the day before and was drugged on anti-nausea meds. Estamos en Cuba, so we found the humor in it and actually learned a lot about the country before even getting out of the car. For instance, as we stopped to let some cows cross the interstate, Jefe informed us that slaughtering a cow is illegal because even though you paid for that cow and it’s on your land and you take care of it every day, the government owns the cow. Therefore, you must get the government’s permission to kill the cow for meat, but the government probably isn’t going to grant you permission because all of the island’s beef comes from Argentina. I really don’t understand why an island – Cuba, especially – wouldn’t want to promote self-sufficiency, but then again, my comprehension of economics needs some tuning. Driving through the countryside though, I saw how much land is not being used and couldn’t help but think about the potential it offers to lessen Cuba’s giant trade imbalance.

Another roadside observation was the contrast between socialist propaganda billboards and the black market deals going down in the median, which we experienced firsthand as the van suddenly screeched to a halt beside a tobacco farm. We piled out and met one of Jefe’s many connections, a tobacco farmer, who showed us how it’s grown and took us into the drying shed. We saw the different stages of tobacco leaves, all hanging from tightly packed rafters and looking like sleeping bats. Farmer Brown said that after 3 months of dehydrating, the leaves are sent to expertly-trained women who divide the leaves based on quality, and that’s how cigar brands are determined. Not by private ownership, obviously, but by quality of leaf! iiiiiiiinteresting.

Inside the drying barn:

We once again loaded up the van and bounced our way to Viñales. Half an hour up a windy mountain road and we arrived at a beautiful lookout point where the weather was reminiscent of back home. The cold front brought a misty rain that mocked our wardrobe decisions. We sat down at a little bar to enjoy the view and hugged ourselves for warmth. Coffee for all, sprite for my returning nausea. We had climbed a bit in elevation and could see the lush valleys below us strewn with tobacco drying huts and clusters of colorful homes. The fog made it difficult to see very far, but in a way heightened the beauty and made the mogotes more majestic.

We made our way to a cave that was used as an escape route for Cuban slaves. The entrance of it was turned into a bar because estamos en cuba and I guess that’s how they celebrate underground railroads. I didn’t get a drink to properly commemorate it though on account of it was before noon and I was still feeling the aftermath of the food poisoning. We decided to walk through the cave and as we came out the other side, the strange series of events continued. A conch shell sounded and we were greeted with a dancing woman, a man spinning fire, and por su puesto, bongos. After the exciting music and dance, the man extinguished his fire in his pants and we scurried off to the horse & carriage waiting to take us back to Jefe.

Driving up the mountain even further to eat lunch, we encountered yet another cave. Scampering through this one, we discovered water at the end and had to get on a boat tour in order to get out. The man on the boat I’m fairly certain didn’t speak English, but had memorized his tour guide lines in English, which resulted in some funny word combinations such as “botter” instead of “bottle.” He kept repeating “wine botter wine botter” as he shone his flashlight on a stalagmite shaped debatably like a wine bottle. The subjective interpretation of rock shapes continued for the next 10 minutes until we finally saw light and bid farewell to our pseudo-English-speaking friend. Finally, we sat down for lunch in a little mountaintop hut and watched our table slowly fill with moros y cristianos, ensaladas de tomates, lechuga, papas fritas, pechuga de pollo, yucca, y platanos. Twas a feast! With full stomachs we began our descent down the mountain and back home to the city, stopping once along the way for Jefe to purchase some black-market roadside corn.