Feb 21, Day Trip to Viñales

 We woke up around 6:15 to get ready for the 7am pickup.  We had a quick breakfast at the Villa consisting of Cuban coffee, fruit and eggs.  By the way, Cuban coffee is served in an espresso cup everywhere.  They never give you more than 150ml of very strong coffee.  It is quite refreshing as you can just take little sips to get your caffeine for the day.  I was checking out how they were making it and it was done in the Moka pot but made with lots of coffee, no one here seems to drink more than a little cup at a time.  It makes me think of the venti coffees I have ordered at Starbucks in my day and how much easier it is just to drink a small, super strong cup.  I may be switching to espresso full-time.  We waited and waited and waited for the car to come to pick us up to take us to Viñales.  At around 7:45, we started to get worried, and Abi was texting her dad, who was trying to get in contact with the tour company.  For some reason, the tour company phone number we called never ended up being picked up, so we were basically just left to sit and see if someone would eventually come.  After waiting so long, the car pulled up to the Villa at 8:40, the driver apologizing profusely as it turned out someone who was supposed to come on the tour never showed up.  We drove 2 and a half hours to Viñales and watched the first Men in Black movie.  The Cuban countryside is strange in general; it is a mix of land that looks nearly unfarmable, rugged mountains and people sowing fields with cattle-pulled equipment.  The highway has two lanes, yet no one is on the road.  We arrived and were able to look out at the valley.  It is a very historical place and one of the best places to dig for fossils from the Jurassic period.  Lots of remnants of sea animals have been found in the valley as it was supposedly once underwater millions of years ago.  The soil was also one of the most fertile in Cuba, so its main industry was agriculture, specifically tobacco farming.  Our guide was named Jesus and played in a band which toured Canada; when he found out we were Canadian, one of the first things he told me was that he had been to Dawson City.  I said why the heck did you go there, he said his band was quite successful.  The first thing we went to see was a massive cave.  On the way in, we tried some sugar cane juice.  Incredible cave with lots of massive remnants hanging from the ceiling.  At the end of the cave, you go on a little boat that takes you through the rest of it, looking at formations in the cave that are supposed to look like recognizable things.  The other people on our tour were a young family from Turkey and a strange couple from New York that, for the first hour of the tour, I assumed, didn't speak any English as they would just stare.  We moved on to lunch, where we had some traditional Cuban food served family style.  I got lamb and it was very well done, the guy New Yorker ordered the lobster and was amazed no one else wanted to order lobster in a palm leaf roofed restaurant in central Cuba.  He was less than impressed when he saw and ate the lobster that was served to him.  I'm pretty sure it was just pink-looking fish.  Everything else was great as they served lots of fresh vegetables that were clearly local.  After lunch, we went to a tobacco plantation where we got to see the tobacco plants, how they were harvested, how they were dried in a wooden house, and how they were rolled.  We got to sample the cigars at the end.  After this, we went to a giant mural with prehistoric animals and the region's first people painted on it.  It was done after they started finding all of the fossils in the valley to honour the area's legacy.  We drank a Pina Collata and sat underneath the mural.  We headed back to Havana after this, and I slept for the majority of the trip back.  Once we returned, we immediately went for Pizza at a little local cafe on the street in our area.  $5 for two cheese pizzas and drinks, which were so nice after a day in the car.  It was an enjoyable day to see the interior of Cuba.  

The Viñales Valley

The Cave

Me Next to the Restaurant 

Tobacco Feilds 

Tobacco Drying

The Mural