Viñales & the countryside

I usually don't take organized tours or team up with fellow travelers, but in Viñales i decided to book through my casa particular a tour in the surrounding countryside and i must admit that it was a money well spent. I shared the tour with a French guy Jean Baptiste and it was a good luck of mine since his Spanish was way better than mine and the guide's English vocabulary was about on the level of that tobacco factory tour guide in Pinar Del Rio. The tour turned out to be 5 hour long walk in the surrounding neighbourhood covering among other things also some neighbourhood farms for illustrating how tobacco plants are being grown, leaves dried and cigars rolled. We tried local blend of coffee, grown and roasted right there in Viñales and the local type of cigars. When in Pinar Del Rio i saw how cigars were professionally made in the factory then in Viñales you could see the whole process from the farmer's side. Local cigars are meant mostly for the nearby area, not so much for export to other parts of Cuba.

In the tobacco farm we were offered a 10-pack of local cigars for 20 CUCs. Considering that the quality of the countryside cigars is much lower than the ones from the factory, it seemed a bit high price. When the guy saw that his sales-pitch is not going well, he added another piece of information to seal the deal: in the town the same pack costs 70 CUCs. That was the final proof that the stuff is greatly overpriced, because if in the town these cigars really were sold for 70 CUCs, he would have absolutely no reason to give us so much discount. Jean Baptiste was later glad he did not buy any, because it came out that in the town the pack costs only 3 CUCs :). Oh that greed of men.

As part of the tour we went into cave-tunnels, which was a super experience though made me feel like a cockroach in a dry and tight place. At some point the tunnel got so small that moving was possible only sideways and i could feel the beginnings of claustrophobia tingling somewhere in me. But it was still an awesome place, something you most definitely do not get to see or do in Estonia.

We had to cut our tour somewhat shorter than originally planned because the gathering rainclouds threatened to liquidate us and we were really far from the town. But as mentioned before - it was all in all a tour quite worth taking and that comes from a person who does not believe in guided tours. 10 CUCs per face.

The town's main square was generally an interesting place. The concentration of well-groomed and dressed people was very high. Let me rephrase that - not so much as "well" as fashionably dressed people. It seemed like it's "the place" for exhibiting yourself and establishing your presence among the hip & cool. On the night of the "Open Mic" concert, our tour guide Pancho was also there. Eager middle-aged man with a sizable belly, obviously spending the 20 CUCs me and Jean Baptiste had paid him earlier on the day. He was being a wealthy drunk for the evening, but even with all those free cervezas he was giving away left and right, he still didn't seem to score any. When he saw Jean Baptiste and me sitting and having mojitos together, he was of course absolutely delighted that we had "found each other" and he had been the catalyst. I almost chocked on a peppermint leaf and Jean Baptiste was highly amused. But it was a different kind of relaxed evening for me: while i was in Jean Baptiste's company, people assumed that we are "together" and nobody was annoying me with unwanted attention and him with other kind of offers. So it worked out well for both of us.

And the temporary-looking drink-stand on the main square makes very decent mojitos, 2 CUCs /a piece.



Our tour guide Pancho






Administering extra strength for the trees, looked very surreal though






A very typical local farmhouse

Tobacco plants growing on the field

A special building for drying tobacco. It has no walls, because the wind has to pass through the drying plants and air has to circulate

Drying tobacco leaves, it takes months for them to dry

Drying tobacco leaves close-up

A local farmer taking a nap under the drying tobacco leaves. They smell good, not like tobacco yet, but more like fresh hay. Any country-Estonian could relate

A local farmer in his home

He is showing us how to make a cigar from scratch

Pressing and rolling of the leaves

It was quite good and was said not to be addictive due to some special processing

Roasting coffee-beans and garlic in the hot sun

Local way of filtering the drinking water. They use a special stone for purification. When i asked how this stone is called, then nobody knew. They just know this type of stone as "stone that cleans the water"

Fresh fruit juice with a dash of rum

I'm ashamed to admit it but up to now i had no idea how a pineapple plant looks like. I was imagining more like a tree type of thingie ..

Tiny beginning of a pineapple

Going down into to the tunnels

I know, i have fallen so very low, that i actually used a built-in-flash to make that shot. I'm going to a photographer's hell.

Local Cuban Viagra. You can infuse a tea from those leaves (about 20 leaves at once). The guide swore that the effect is quite noticeable. Curiously enough big chunks of leaves were missing from the tree and some branched were clearly cut off with a saw :)

Sleepy Viñales

A small relaxed city of 15 thousand people, 27 km from Pinar Del Rio. Judging by all the big tour-buses that were dropping off their load in the mornings and picking it back up before sundown, it seemed to be a popular day-trip destination for tourists from other nearby cities. It felt that almost every second person in Viñales was a German tourist, you could hear and see them everywhere. And exactly tourists, not travelers: age group 30-50, armed with Lonely Planets, bags around their waists and ice-creams in their hands.

Viñales is a sleepy little town, full of small houses, chickens running wild and awfully skinny, but friendly dogs dozing off in every spot of shade they can find. Local people seem to be taking it super-slow there and are not really bothering themselves to be pushy. Most houses are one storey houses with a little patch of grass in front of them, fully equipped with garden-chairs and flowerpots. The houses are so small and compact, they look like tiny garden shacks, but are in reality surprisingly spacious, with backyards and stuff. They are built in maximum proximity, so not much privacy there. I think about half of the houses in Viñales are casa particulares, market response for big number of visiting tourists i guess.

Viñales is renowned for it's nature - mostly for round-shaped mountains and a lovely countryside. Well, if you're from a big cement city like NY or Frankfurt, this landscape might be breath-taking for you. But i think that for an average Estonian who knows how a real forest looks and feels like, the local landscape is quite unimpressive, except for mountains that is. It's main quality is that it's .. different. In a "dried-into-various-shades-of-brown" sort of way. I liked visiting the cottages of the local farmers though. Real people were living and working there, not museum props. I will post photos & comments of my Viñales country-tour later.

My casa particular was a nice little clean 10-15 m2 euro-renovated room for tourists, but the family was very friendly, the wife an exceptional cook and the husband best bartender in the city. "Lonely Planet" has even recommended the hotel where he works for it's drinks, so needless to say that i was well equipped when it came to mojitos or other cocktails :). In Cuba thrives a referral system - every casa owner knows definitely some other casa owner in the next city/village and you don't have to worry about anything. They will often meet your bus, help you with your luggage etc. And price is previously agreed already, you don't pay an extra 5 or 10 CUCs just for somebody referring you. I guess later between the owners couple of CUCs may exchange hands but your price is still fixed, so it doesn't really concern you. Of course you can search for a casa yourself too and it's quite easy to find one. But in my opinion, with referral system comes a certain "level of security". Due to lack of the internet and other well-established ways to make yourself internationally known, the word of mouth is pretty much the only way for any advertisement at all. And casa owners rely on tourists recommending them further so they are not about to risk that by sending you to a random casa, where your stuff gets stolen or food is terrible.

In one of the evenings there was kind of "Open Mic"- type of event on the main square where different hip-hop and reggaeton artists were taking turns. The concert was quite amusing, mostly in terms of how bad the singing was. The reggaeton guys were actually quite nice, but the rappers were not so good at all. The local gangstas were not really gangstas enough to be believable and them rapping there with dark sunglasses and baggy t-shirts going down until their knees turned more into a stand-up comedy rather than musical experience. I specially liked one guy who seemed to be establishing his very own singing style or kind of a signature and kept screaming in random moments during singing: "Es rap! Rap PURO!" ("It's rap! PURE rap!").

My casa was about 10 minutes walk from the main square and as i was walking home i thanked God that i had not opted for a central city casa. Houses in smaller Cuban cities do not generally have glass-windows, they have kind of super-sized wooden or metallic blinds that you can open and close at your own convenience. So you can imagine yourself about the level of sound isolation. I generally have to sleep with ear-plugs, but that "Rap PURO!" concert would've definitely been present in my dreams.

When i walked one evening around 10 pm on the street, every house seemed to have been lit by a TV. And since Cuba has only couple of national channels and no satellite TV, it was pretty much the same show running in the same time in every house. At that particular moment one soap opera was on (they call them telenovelas) and because most families were obviously watching the same soap and blinds were all open, i could easily follow the dialogues by walking on the street. I even watched one episode of some soap with my casa family one day. That was very nostalgic 50 minutes. I haven't watched any soaps since basic school and soaps are the very shows responsible for the best part of my Spanish vocabulary. They don't teach stuff like "I'm pregnant!" and "Murderer!" in the school.

Buying cucumbers from a vendor-on-wheels

Casa of Lele & Alberto:

Calle 7ma No. 21 e/2da y4ta, Viñales
Tel. (048) 69-66-74



Alberto and Lele

Dinner in the casa




The room looked a bit funny, specially the inside curtain-decoration, but was very clean and comfortable because it also had a fridge and AC. It was a separate little house next to the main house.

Price was 20 CUCs / per night / per room
Dinner 7 CUCs and breakfast 3 CUCs.

Tobacco Factory of Pinar Del Rio

Definitely worth a visit. The tour cost about 5 CUCs and unfortunately no cameras are allowed. My camera isn't also particularly small to smuggle it in secretly :) The tour was in English, but it seemed that the lady giving it had an English vocabulary just enough to cover the tour. If i asked her more specific questions, she had quite a blank face. I wouldn't even call it a tour, it was more like a speedy walk-through. I did the whole thing through with her and then went once more alone. She did watch me a bit funny, but didn't say anything.

The tour takes you through many different parts of the factory. First stop is the rolling room where lovely dark ladies roll the cigars. After initial rolling cigars are placed into a mould and under a press for 20 minutes. Then they are finished off by rolling a finer quality tobacco leaf around them for an outer layer and sealing/cutting off the endings.

In selection room you can see how tobacco leaves are selected and categorized by color and texture.

Packing area is where cigars are labelled with different stickers and packed into various boxes and packages (which are all made on the place).

I wonder if those factory workers feel like trained monkeys who are being observed day and night? They don't seem to be bothered much by the constant audience, though one lady did start getting a bit itchy after i had been standing next to her station for about 15 minutes and watching her work. Understandable, hehe. The speed and precision of her work was just very captivating, specially considering that she was using some seriously sharp knives and other cutting instruments. Every rolling worker has to fill the quota of 80 cigars per 8 hour work-day, though usually they make about 100-120 per day. Those cigars that do not pass the quality control are distributed to the workers for free. I wonder if making cigars is like working in McDonalds - after work the last thing they want to see or smoke is a cigar :).

My father is always the one who suffers when it comes to bringing souvenirs from my trips. I can never think of anything useful to bring him and i always feel bad. So this time i wanted to buy him authentic Cuban cigars. Considering my budget and form of luggage i chose a pack of cigarillos, mostly because they were the only ones which were packed in a metal box. Important point when shoving fragile cigars into your already about to burst backpack. Hours later when i was counting my remaining cash, i realized that the shop-boy had made an error and given me back more money than i had given him to begin with. For once my "blond hair & blue eyes" worked in my advantage rather than contributed to my financial ruin. And if to consider that tourists in Cuba are greatly over-charged with every service or product they pay for, i didn't also feel particularly guilty for the mistake. So basically i got a free entrance to the factory and a complimentary package of cigarillos to boot.

Prices are in CUCs, they also use the dollar sign.

Search for impossible things

Finally my search to buy a notebook in Cuba has come to an end. Every stationary shop i went to until now never had any. It was like searching for that unfortunate payphone card all over again: in Cuban cities payphones are everywhere and i wanted to buy myself also a card. Except i couldn't find a single place that would sell them. I was literally making circles in Havana because every tourism office sent me to the next one which sent me to the bookshop which sent me to the stationary shop which sent me to a run-around-tour of big hotels which were all supposed to sell those unfortunate payphone cards etc. It became for me a bit of a dare already, to see how long does that chain continue. In the end, after 13 unsuccessful stops on the way, i found a place which instead of telling me that "of course they do not sell payphone cards, try the place xx" told me that they indeed did sell those cards but are freshly out. Not that it did me any good, but i was already starting to feel like a circus idiot running around town for some mythical payphone cards and at least now i got a confirmation that those cards indeed do exist. I decided that i don't need that payphone card that badly after all and thus ended my search.
To add extra thrill to my everyday Cuban life, i took up a search for a simple notebook, which i finally today found in Pinar Del Rio.

Now i can blog on paper :)

My next project is going to be finding a souvenir that doesn't have Che Guevara imprinted, drawn or etched on it. Predicting it's going to be a long and hard road.