Cuba March 1 and 2 Vinales and Playa Larga

Friday, March 1

Tobacco drying in a barn in Vinales, Cuba



Yuli in a cloud of cigar smoke

Today we visited a tobacco farm, where we met the farmer.  Since it was rainy and overcast, the farmer took us inside his drying barn where he explained tobacco farming through our noble guide and translator, Yuli.  Of course the farmer, who Joan thought looked like Antonio Banderas, was doing a terrific job smoking one of his cigars. We thought we were going to lose our Yuli in the cloud of smoke, but she soldiered on.

 

Showing us how to roll a cigar.

We learned that it is the terroir of the Cuban tobacco that makes it so famous.  The different grades or tobacco often come from the same plant.  The lower and lesser leaves are picked for cigarettes.  Leaves further up the plant are picked for cigar fillers and the best are used for cigar wrappers.  “Antonio” explained that the leaves are sprayed with a combination of honey and rum, among other things!  We watched him roll some cigars where we learned how important is the wrapping of the cigar. 

 A group of us (not Joan) purchased a bundle from “Antonio,” and later when smoking them, we could see how some were better constructed than others in the batch by the draw of the smoke. 

Cigars rolled and pressed for us in Cuba.



David enjoying a hand-rolled Cuban cigar



Though nice, these cigars did not compare to the fancy ones we got in Habana, especially for the draw.  We might add that the farmer’s bundle, cost about $2 each, and the fancy ones cost  $8 to $10 each and would be about $25 in Canada.

Mogotes near Vinales in Cuba.

After the farm, we drove into the Parque Nacional Vinales, an area of very interesting rock formations, called mogotes, very similar to those found in China.  The ground is basically flat, but rising out of the ground are limestone formations, like huge haystacks, with rounded tops and very sheer sides. 

Unfortunately it was still drizzling and the clouds were low, so we did not have the opportunity to see the scenery in all it's spectacular grandeur, but we think our pictures evoke drawings of similar landscapes in China.

 

Entrance to Palenque de los Cimarrones

There are several well-known caves in the rock formations that have become popular places for tourists to visit.  Most of our group visited one cave, called Palenque de los Cimarrones, while those of us who were averse to touristy kitsch or enclosed spaces waited in the bus and read while we listened to our driver Abel’s great music.   

 

 

Our next spot was the Mural de la Prehistoria, where we had lunch.  There were three choices . . . and great mjiotos and pina coladas and beer!  This dining area was in full view of the mural, a huge garish painting done right on the side of one of these interesting formations in the 1960s by a follower of Diego Rivera.  The huge snail, dinosaurs, sea monsters and humans represent an artistic vision of evolution, all in psychedelic colors.  It attracts a lot of tourists to the little restaurant.

The psychedelic Mural de la Prehistoria near Vinales, Cuba

Disconcerting doll head

At the Jardin de Caridad, Vinales, Cuba

After lunch, we headed into the town of Vinales, where we saw a very interesting private garden, El Jardin de Caridad, created by two sisters now passed away but continued by their assistants. For a donation, we toured this sprawling garden that was a century in the making. In addition to orchids and many other local varieties of flowers, bushes and trees, we saw folk sculpture made from dolls heads, beer cans and metal salvage.  Fun.



At the Jardin de Caridad, Vinales, Cuba

Then we walked around the town of Vinales, trying to mingle with the locals. (We stood out).  There were a couple of small art galleries, a common thread in Cuba, and we bought a small print of the colorful red tile rooftops we saw in Habana.  We also tried, and survived eating some tasty chocolate doughnut-like fried street snacks. 


Street food: Meringues and chocolate donuts!

There was a small queue in front of the Government store.  Cubans go here to buy many staples – if they have them.  Interesting retail – no displays, not even stock showing, whatever.  I guess you just have to ask, and if they have it, you can get it for a fixed price.  It is almost as bad as the Pennsylvania State Liquor Store system in the 1970s – but this is for staples, not evil spirits.

Town square in Vinales, Cuba with the obligatory statue of Marti

Of course there is always the black market. We asked our guide Yuli about this – where is the black market?  Everywhere she said, as she gestured with a sweep of her arm-- it’s pervasive, all over Cuba.  Do you suppose some off what was in those big poly-wrapped bundles we saw at the Miami Airport was black market supplies?

Dinner was back at the hotel, and this was the first time that we saw musicians that were a bit of a disappointment; they didn’t seem as polished as the others we had seen. 



Cute kitty in the tree at Rancho San Vicente

There were some cute cats up in the tree just off the dining porch, that, though perched high (to avoid the dogs probably), knew how to work the crowd, especially Joan, who was a soft touch.  We had three choices for dinner…and afterwards didn’t sit around the pool, as it was cold and we were all bundled in all the warm clothes we’d brought with us.  Steve did teach us about the warming qualities of aged rum though, and we found it was a good antidote to the chill. 

 

Saturday, March 2 

After another buffet breakfast at the hotel, we departed Vinales and headed for the Zapata Peninsula.  Our destination was Playa Larga at the upper tip of Bahia Cochinos – The Bay of Pigs.

This trip involved quite a bit of highway driving and was our longest day in the bus.  Cuban highways are not too busy for the simple reason that not a lot of people have cars. The busses are not new but rather well used, which is polite-talk for almost always crowded.  In the countryside, in lieu of busses, we saw old trucks fitted with benches that were also overflowing.  There is another time-honored system of getting around in Cuba: hitchhiking.  Often we saw men standing by the roadside and instead of a projecting thumb, they were holding out peso notes.  There is sort of an unofficial fare for some rides.  Finally, on the four lane highways we were using today at major entrances, we saw officials wearing yellow jackets, los amarillos, coordinating rides.  Apparently government vehicle are obliged to stop and give people a lift, facilitated by los amarillos. Though it was a four lane highway, horse carts, bicycles and pedicabs shared the space with trucks, busses and cars.  Especially at entrances, pedestrians were casual about jaywalking across all four lanes.  We asked Yuli about this safety issue, and she told us that it is a big problem, though everything looked fairly orderly to us.

Hotel Playa Larga individual room-a great cottage!

We arrived at the Hotel Playa Larga to find our rooms were actually separate buildings, small art-deco cottages about the size of the average Cuban house (which are small by our standards). That reminded us of 1940s suburban housing developments in America.  Our cottage had a big living room, decent bath and good size bedroom – no creatures though.  The porch was great for having a late night rum and cigar.

Our first appointment was with Frank Medina, the director of Cienega de Zapata National Park.  He explained that Cuba is about 110 square kilometers and has a population of about 11 million people, 3 million of whom live in Habana. 

Cienega de Zapata National Park Director with our guide Yuli.

Cuba has 290 natural beaches, including our Playa Larga, and about 100 protected areas.  The island is also home to 15 natural parks, 6 biospheres and 2 World Heritage sites.  Cienega de Zapata National Park is about 5,000 square kilometers.  He said it is the most important wetlands in the Caribbean, and host to a variety of mammals including dolphins and manatees, four kinds or rats, bats, feral cats and dogs, cows, horses, dolphins, the occasional farmer, and of course tourists.  Reptiles are not to be forgotten, ranging from the Cuban crocodile, tortoises to a variety of snakes. Of special interest to some our group was the fact that of the 365 birds to be seen in Cuba, 256 of them can be found in Zapata.  Dr. Medina also said there were over 1,000 species of plants here, many of them endemic.  In addition to orchids, ferns and epiphytes, there are important trees, such as the ash, known to make good baseball bats.

Mural at Hotel Playa Larga on the Bay of Pigs, Cuba

The area also has a problem with invasive species; about the only ones they were really successful in eradicating were the freedom fighters sponsored by the CIA who came into the Bay of Pigs in 1961.  Yuli tells us that one of the reasons the invasion, which Cubans call LaVictoria de Playa Giron, failed was the freedom fighters expected support from the local inhabitants. But in the years between Castro’s revolution in 1958 and the invasion in 1961, the Castro Communist government steered education and health care resources to the countryside the locals had not seen during the Batista years.  She said that most of the locals decided they were better off under Castro. 

Monument to a fallen Cuban defender at the Bay of Pigs

 

Throughout the area, we saw monuments to the soldiers who died in that battle, and the hotel had quite a 3-D wall mural giving their side of the battle.  We were disappointed not to have the chance to visit the museum about the invasion at Playa Giron, which we learned was very interesting.

Before dinner, we went for a walk on the beach and rocky shoreline, which was overflowing with flotsam and jetsam, but we spotted some starfish, lots of sea urchins and sweet striped fish in the shallow tidepools. 

Tidepooling at Playa Larga on the Bay of Pigs

 

Some of us (even Dane!) donned our swim suits and went for a swim in the Bay of Pigs. It was very shallow at Playa Larga, so we could wade out for many yards and only have the warm water come up to our waists. 

Swimming (well, waltzing) in the Bay of Pigs

 

 

The thatched beachside bar was our pre-prandial gathering point for mojitos, aged rum and cerveza.  

Seeing the sun come out on Playa Larga Cuba after several days of clouds.



 

And glory be, the setting sun poked its way through the clouds and we were hopeful for improved weather after several days of grey skies, drizzle and cold. 





"It's lovely rice pudding for dinner again

Dinner, again with good live musicians, was fine.  One of the things about the Cuban menu is that the plates become a “study in white,” rice, potato, pork chop, chicken or fish . . . .and surprise, it’s lovely rice pudding for dessert again!  

The evidence of a night well smoked.

Dane enjoyed sitting on the porch with his cigar buddies smoking their cigars and sipping rum while Joan retreated inside to the fresh air to read another good book called Cuba Diaries by Isadora Tattlin.