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Published: April 2nd 2007
After an amazing week at Maria la Gorda, Laurence and I made our way to the small town of Viñales. We were excited for a change in scenery and some time away from the beach and eagerly awaited some hiking and biking in the countryside.
Viñales is a burgeoning tourist town with loads of places to stay and things to do. It is situated amongst impressive limestone formations called Mogotes which are supposedly some of the best rock climbing in the western hemisphere. We were dropped of at Casa Benito by our van driver who sugested this small and friendly place. There we met a lovely couple from Toronto, Ian and Elizabeth who we shared many evening conversations with.
The atmosphere was relaxed to say the least and the pastoral setting of the town was a reminder of Cuba´s tobacco crops. It was extremely pleasureable seeing large trucks loaded with timber or dried tabacco alonside ox pulled carts in the towns main road.
While the pace was slow and we took advantage by waking late and napping in the afternoons we did manage to hike into the surrounding countryside, bike in and around town and generally enjoy a
laid back Cuban lifestyle.
Walking through the tabacco fields, I was often greeted by friendly tabacco farmers eager to share a hand rolled cigar, from their own crops of course and conversation about the world and Cuban politics and its particularities. Smoking hand rolled cigars with these old men was a pleasure and something I will not soon forget. In addition to tales about the revolution, I was also made aware of some of the difficulties Cuba has faced in the past 15 years and some of the stranger laws and regulations that face everyday cubans. Not only did I find out that some property is in fact private but that there is also many formal and informal ways of selling and trading these private lands.
A great surprise of Cuba was the amazing, delicious and incredible coffee that they produce, which is available at every street corner. Most farmers grow their own and always have a pot ready for anyone passing by. One afternoon, I was walking through the fields with a guy from South Africa named Richard and we stumbled across a small house with two women sitting on the porch. They invited us in and
we accepted. Fresh pinappple was quickly chopped up while fried salted bananas were offered as well, not to mention great coffee which they had grown, roasted and ground themselves. We were soon joined by a quiet man, the husband of one of the women who sat quietly in his rocking chair, rolled a cigar for the both of us and sat and enjoyed the shade within his house and the conversation. It is not often that famers get a chance to speak with tourists who speak Spanish and they were all quite interested in Canada, the world and discussing politics.
Turned out that they were tabacco growers while the other women worked at the farm each day. She was an agronomist and was in charge of quality and pest control of the tabacco, very interesting. There is no poverty in Cuba, only lower middle class. These farmers, while short of luxuries like Nike shoes and fancy cloths had more than enough food to eat and had a fairly relaxed lifestyle, not to mention free housing, access to a good medical system and free education for themselves and their childrem. Unlike other Latin American countries Cuba has little inequality and
Good looking bull
Mogotes (limestone cliffs) in backgroundpoverty. It is an incredible juxtoposition against the slums of Buenos Aires, Lima, La Paz and Bogota and the rural poverty of each of these countries.
Viñales was an amazing change of ace and a glimpse at what like in Cuba in like. I will definetly be back in Cuba someday and Viñales will be on the list of places to visit.
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mormor
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Wonderfull to read about Jason .love Mormor.