Day 4-5: Vinales Valley and Ronni's birthday

Famous Vinales Valley with a tobacco drying hut.

Ronni and our tour bus.

Day 4 Vinales Valley

Tourbus to Vinales, which is about 2 hours west of Havana in the Pinar del Rio province. We pass by beautiful countryside and tobacco farms and drying huts.
We stopped in Pinar del Rio, but the tobacco factory is closed. No one told our tour guide it would be closed. Several tourists are angry. Ronni and I don't care. We go across to the cigar shop and buy a Cohiba to smoke later that night by the pool. At the Tourist Rum store, we can sample different types of rum. I really wish we could bring some rum and cigars back to the states (we can't as U.S. citizens do this). We go to see the Indian Caves, which is a big tourist trap. We make the most of it though and watch the sugar cane crushers and drink the grappa juice mixed with Rum (quite good), and after this alcoholic beverage head into the wet floored and steep cave (those crazy tourist traps!). I've seen more extensive and better lit caves before so am not impressed. It has a similar feeling to the It's a Small World ride at Disneyworld, but with only stalagtites and your own imagination. Its here though that I do a typical tourist move, and ride the water buffalo after the ride, while the owner talks quietly to the animal and it does what the owner says. Hmm, who said water buffalos are dumb?
The Mural of the Prehistorics. The tour buses all go to this. Why? I don't know. It is a huge mural, but not very attractive. There are black lines across the mural that make the mural appear like it's a television screen, trying to come in with a clear picture. If I thought that a postmodern reflection of dinosaurs in Cuba is what Diego Rivera's protégé was going for, I might buy it, but I don't think so.
Then we are dropped off at the Las Jazmines Hotel. Our tour guide does not have any information on when our bus shall take us back the next day. We should not be surprised. The hotel desk people do not know either. Nor is the tour desk person really sure. Well, we learn to live a little on the edge here and welcome adventure and leave it up to the Tourist God to fatefully provide our bus to leave tomorrow. In the meantime, we will eat our package included meal at the hotel (drinks not included) with fluorescent lighting, and watch some TV to relax. The view from our room is astounding, of the Vinales Valley. The valley has these huge "bumps" in it, like mountains or hills, but smaller and very much like a "haystack", which is what they are called "mogotes" in Spanish. These limestone formations gradually have disintegrated so they are a rather strange looking haystack. I read later that many rock climbers have discovered these as good places to climb. I look out on a couple small tobacco farms and tobacco drying huts. The sky is clear, there is no pollution and I can see quite far in the distance.

Ronni's success with the Cohiba.

Rhonda on the exciting water buffalo. Don't fall off!

Mural of the Prehistorics.

View from our hotel, Las Jazmines.

Tobacco leaves being pressed.

Rhonda smoking a Cohiba finally. Trying to look like Hemingway and doing a good job!

Day 5 Ronni's birthday

Ronni's stomach isn't doing well, so she sleeps by the pool. It is her birthday so I hope she feels better by the evening. My lead stomach is doing fine. I have even drank some water from the tap (Tip: Not suggested.)

We hang out by the pool and talk with some other tourists who were also on the two day Vinales plan and don't know for sure when the bus will arrive. They are Lars and Heidi from D.C. Lars is working on an article about underground tattoo artists in Havana, which is really cool. Its not easy obviously for tattoo artists to get gear and its not legal even to do tattoos, so it sounds like it will be an interesting article and plan to check it out in Skin and Ink.

The bus comes at 2:10 and we are grateful that the Tourist God has supplied.

That nite, Miriam's friend Jorge joins us for Ronni's birthday at El Gato Tuerto (one eyed Cat). This bar apparently just reopened after being closed for 12 years. We get there around 9:00 and have room at the bar. (Apparently it is normally impossible to get a seat on other nites). We hear several folk Cuban songs and styles including son, which is the Buena vista Social Club style of lyrics. One song called Yolanda is translated by Jorge for me.

We also see a famous Cuban composer named Jose Luis Cortes who is the composer/leader of the band NG La Banda. "NG" stands for New Generation.... Our first famous Cuban siting! We can't help but that soon we will see Fidel!

Jorge, Ronni, Rhonda

Colors at the El Gato Tuerto.