Vinales, the wild west of cuba

At the viazul bus stop in Havana I met this guy, Dan, from the UK. After arriving in Viñales we had a couple of drinks and met two american guys.
The only way to get into cuba for those Americans was to tell the authorities they were journalists. Apparently they also want to come before hordes of  fat americans come to cuba and breaking the poor horses’ backs. Unfortunately for them they had to give a urine sample after they arrived at the Havana airport. That was probably due to one of them having rastas and looking a bit like a stoner. What does this have to do with me? Nothing.

The next day I went horse riding with a Czech guy (hey Henry what’s up?) and his mom. Viñales is really a nice place to visit and there’s a lot of stuff to do if you like nature. Let the pictures speak themselves…

HORSE DOMINATION!

Then we arrived at a tobacco plantation. Unfortunately there was no tobacco since it was September and they usually plant it this time of the month. The tobacco takes 3 months to grow. Then another three months to dry and ferment in a shed and another 3 months in a package, with some added flavours like vanilla or orange to get a certain taste. The end of the cigar is dipped in honey before smoking. The cigars here don’t contain nicotine because they don’t use the whole leaves. Only the stem contains nicotine (according to the guy below).

A nice viewpoint and a cuba libre later we went to a coffee plantation. They told us about different coffee types etc.. after tasting I wanted to take another dumb picture with the horse mask. It drew quite a lot of attention. So much that the owner of the plantation offered me a bottle of rum for it. No way! He then offered me 2 bottles. Still no way… then 4 bottles. He really wanted it. In the end I could make clear that my precious mask is not for sale because i need it further in on my travels. Why does he need a horse mask anyway?

You can also go hiking or climbing but be wary the mosquitoes are going to eat you. Still, you will be awarded with great views and dirty pants.

Sometimes you also see a mud surfer in its natural habitat.

We went up to the Cueva de la Vaca the next day. After about three hours of walking in what felt like 1000 degrees and 100% humidity we found a bar in the middle of nowhere. (Thanks maps.me) because it’s not really fun to walk through the mud we asked one bar keeper to rent a horse to ride back to viñales.
Unfortunately that didn’t work out because she couldn’t reach the owner of the horses. Thankfully we made it to the street and took a collective cab before a big thunderstorm came. The locals looked at us as if we were aliens. Ok that was probably because we were really dirty. (and probably smelly, too)

 Cuba has nice beaches. Like cayo jutias. Amazing.

In order to get to this beaches you have to take an awesome looking cab that looks much better than it works and drive on a road that has so many pot holes you could think it got cluster bombed. But no, this is how some roads are in cuba: Between bad and even worse. Fortunately our driver knows the road like his own pocket. That also saved us on the way back when it began to rain. It wasn’t heavy rain but after 5 minutes of riding in the rain there was a bang and the windshield wiper went into the happy hunting grounds. Now we were driving literally blind. The driver casually mentioned we should keep our eyes open too.

Cienfuegos

Cienfuegos is nice but there’s no really much to see apart from the laguna Guanaroca, where also flamingos are. A spanish guy and me went to the “botanical garden” but it looked more like a random patch of forest. It’s a great city if you want to party and still have an authentic cuban vibe.

Trinidad

Trinidad is so touristy that more tourists than locals live there, which is kinda sad. In my opinion it’s overrated. The cave party was nice though, and there are also diving spots nearby.