The Days are Blurring together Now....

TUESDAY, August 09, 2016:  I arrived on the 4-hour bus to Vinales at 1p.m.  and Yeyo did not come pick me up as she promised.  I hired a bike taxi for 3$ to take me 6 blocks to her house.  She was busy; I waited.  Her servant brought me mango juice.  I waited.  She ended up putting me up at her bro-in-law Chino’s place.  He is a great cook, and so is his wife, by the way (they made me a six course lobster dinner, but I jump ahead…).

The Broken Down Angel in the White Cab-tastrophy

Chino got me some old broken down white taxi with the inside of the doors stripped to take me out to the horse farm.  This chick who drove the cab was dressed all in white, even a white wrap on her hair.  Her car stalled three times before we got to the first stop sign, but she was part of the horse package so I didn’t care.  We drove out through town and onto a rocky long road which she drove too fast and I was sure her car was going to take its last breath on the way to the horse barn.

Puffing my way through Vinales

When we arrived there was a group of four Europeans that I joined for a tour of the tobacco “factory” (ie barn), and some jamoke taught us how to roll/make cigars.  I got one free.  They were selling packages of 10 for 45$.  One of the Europeans bought one.  Give a man a cigar and he thinks he is on top of the world.  You should’ve seen these guys puff up and try to smoke the things without gagging. Lol

 Tobacco plant drying

 A cigar was part of the tour in Vinales

 This guy taught us how a cigar is made.

 On my trusty steed Pinto.

 The breathtaking mountains of Vinales, off atop a horse.

 A quaint little home in the mountains, around which pineapple, avocado, and coconuts grow.

 Two steps behind me for two hours was my excellent little guide, Pedro yelling, "Left, right, straight" as the trail twisted and turned through the mountainside.

Pedro and the Coco Locos

Then we separated and I got my own horse/trail ride guide, named Pedro.  He had to help me get off and on the horse because I had on a 10 pound backpack and was wearing Birkenstocks.  (Those, I am sure, are not the only reasons I couldn’t smoothly hoist myself up and down, but that’s my story and I’m sticking to it!)

We rode for two hours in the Cuban jungle and stopped once to go swimming and drink “Coco (nut) Locos” out of freshly cut coconuts, and the second time to take a hair-raising walk down a canyon and into caves leading from one side of the mountain to the other.  Some of these passageways were so narrow I had to turn sideways and tug to get my backpack through them.  The guide passed out 7 flashlights to a group of about 15 of us, so I used the searchlight on my phone.  A couple of the Brits in the group could barely make it down into the canyon.   The French lady in front of me stank.  We were in very tight quarters. I, as has been the case a lot in Cuba, was the oldest one in the bunch.   I secretly sang Hallelujah when I saw daylight streaming in from the other side.  Pedro was sitting on a rock waiting for me at the side of a river with our horses.  We continued to ride and ride and ride through the jungle.  My pelvic bones hurt.  I don’t think I’ve been on a horse that long since my family rode down into the Grand Canyon or somewhere when I was like 11.

I took umpteen photos, but none with the spectacular scenery that Jack and Mary captured in January.

 Enjoying a "Coco Loco" rum drink in the middle of nowhere.

 Just after a swim  in  bathwater warm water in a little lake in the middle of nowhere.

 Entering the caves.

 Little Pedro and his big Cocoloco.

Walking in a sloppy trail full of muck through the Cuban jungle.

 Walking THROUGH the mountain in that dark, skinny cave.

Within ½ hour of My Arrival I was On a Tour

We started this fiasco- um, I mean set of tours at 2 p.m. and finished at 5:21.  At 6 p.m. my taxi still had not come.  I was waiting in the thatch-roofed cigar making hut, where all the farm/barn hands began to gather after a long day’s work.  The chief horseman was given a free very high quality cigar by some African guy from France and he was punchy with delight, dancing around singing off tune.  A guy with a belly hanging down over his unzipped zipper kept snorting.   Everyone slapped hands when they met.  There was only one woman there so I put her to work making a Pina Colada for me.  One guy came back twice after he’d packed all his cigar gear up- the first time to give me a free cigar, and the second to give me three petite bananas, “fresh off the trees.”  The head cigar roller ended up giving me a ride home, back to Chino’s place.  

 An  almost ripe coffee  bean.  They start green, turn yellow, then when red are HAND picked, because the government doesn't allow machines on its land.

 Chino and his wife's place in  the city of Vinales.

 Pedro sitting on a rock waiting for me after I  climbed through the cave through the mountain.

 The Cocoloco bar in "The Valley of Silence."

 Coming home  to  the horse barn after 2 hours in a saddle.

Close enough  to touch  a bull;  they aren't so scary after all!

Yo Ho Ho and a Bottle of Rum (a day)

Some Europeans are staying in my house in another room.  One of the guys explained to me that the four of them “HAD” to drink a bottle of rum every day that they were in Cuba, so they were out on the front porch doing that as I consumed my delicious dinner. (Plantain chips, pineapple, bananas, mangos, green beans, avacados, lobster, rice and bean soup with potatoes in  it.)   You know the weight I told you I was losing in Havana?  Well you can nix that!

 The coffee tour guide showing me how to grind sugar cane.  (Completely random skill, I  thought!)

 Lobster feast at Chinos for $12.

Downtown Vinales.

I finished my dinner at 8, edited my photos and now am taking my aching pelvis to bed! Lol