Blogs from Pinar del Rio, Oeste, Cuba, Central America Caribbean

Cuba Day 4. Thursday 24 Jan 19 Back out of village and left along valley heading west. Undulating for 10k followed by a lump of a hill Which had us losing water to evaporation in this humid climate with little breeze. I made an error previously about there being a thousand it so old American cars. They may now even equal Turkey Vultures and be in the several thousands. We see them everywhere. Today as we ventured further west we became more rural and vintage. There were nearly as many ponies and carts as there were small tractors including three carts pulled by two oxen, two of them piled high with stones. I suppose the highlight was seeing a chap ridging his crop with two oxen and a little boy of about 4 with him. As ... read more

Last full day in Cuban paradise with nothing to do. We had breakfast, back to the room, changed and lubed up for the beach. Everyone had some part on their body over-exposed to sun. But for the most part, we were all doing well. Kirsten leaned that we could walk to a private beach. We were up for one more adventure. We headed down the sand to find the private beach. It was a good walk and we even had to take to the ocean to get around a bunch of dead trees to take up the path again. There was one sign that had an arrow on it and the word “bar”. Sweet! Think again, this is Cuba and our expectations needed to remain low. It was a private beach, and there was an area ... read more

Pavel and Yudy made us a traditional Cuban breakfast of eggs, ham, fresh fruit, juice, toast and butter and coffee and jam. We keep forgetting to tell people that we don’t drink coffee. The cool thing about our breakfast was that they served it to us on the roof of their house. Rooftop patios must be new here, because many houses had the beginnings of making social areas on the roofs. It seemed as if every house in town has a room for rent. They all said whose house it was and how many rooms they had available. This is clearly a way for the Cuban people to earn a few extra dollars. Again, the outside of the houses were all the same and nothing special, but insides they are able to decorate and make them ... read more

Today, friday, we took a long bus ride to the valley of Viñales. We still can't sing due to the period of mourning for Castro, so all our plans have changed. On our way to Viñales, we stopped in a village called Puerta de Golpe to.visit an interesting community project and make a donation of art supplies. Mario Peregrin founded this art program for young people in his village about a decade ago when a hurricane blew down the local theater along with other facilities for the youth. He provides a workshop for them to learn various types of folk art including painting and ceramics. We had a nice tour, met some of the artists, and other peiple who worked there. We were served a delicious lunch in the garden, surrounded by beautiful plants and interesting ... read more

After the hecticness of Habana I needed a few days to chill out. My couchsurfing friend David took me and another couchsurfing friend called David (a little confusing so I will refer to him as "German David") to visit his uncle in Pinar Del Rio. It is a region of Cuba to the West of Habana which is famous for growing tobacco, and also has beautiful countryside. David´s uncle has a farm just outside Pinar Del Rio town where he grows tobacco for sale to the government and subsistence crops. The land is owned by the government so in return for being allowed to farm rent free he has to grow for and then sell tobacco to the governement for rediculously low prices (despite being extremely valuable). The farm was fascinating: water was drawn from the ... read more