A Visit To The Country

  After the madness of Havana it was time to get a bit of fresh air - I headed west into Pinar del Rio province - Cuba"s best tobacco growing area I stopped first at Las Terrazas a Cuban eco resort where I stayed in a little thatched hut along with several spiders and frogs - the Cubans know how to put the eek into eco! From there I headed further west to a small town called Vinales - this area is famous all over Cuba for it's scenery    
                                      My hut at Las Terrazas complete with resident vultures!
                                   Butterfly on rainforest walk Las Terrazas
                                    Tobacco drying barn in Vinales - Cuba is all about Cigars!
I stayed in a Casa Particular - these are the equivalent of B&B's - there are no backpackers hostels in Cuba which is a bit of a shame as they are good socially and help with travel planning and local knowledge Self travel around Cuba has been quite challenging - information is pretty hard to come by - especially with beginners Spanish like mine - however I am not totally to blame - Cuban logic is something that is more difficult to learn than the language! If there's a complicated lengthy way to do something thats the way it gets done Ordinary Cubans in their homes and in the street are great but get involved in any transportation or God forbid bureaucracy problem (see later posts) and you are done for! But that's Cuba! As the Cubans say `Es Cuba!`
                                     Oxen working in Vinales - ploughing seeding and pulling carts
     They pull using a Spanish head yoke intoduced when this was a colony and still used today
Campesinos - the people who work in the small Fincas (farms) moving around Vinales Agriculture in Cuba is often on a subsistence level - small holders grow what they need for thrnselves and hope go make a few extra pesos selling off any surplus Lack of mechanisation makes life hard - there are no tractors - animals do all the work - the horse is the means of transport and the ox is the muscle and things are not changing Even in the cities all the public green spaces are hand cut with machettes - no sit on lawnmowers here! The large sugar and tobacco plantations are run by the government and have more mechanisation Still all the produce is totally organic - no pesticides are available I was lucky enough to meet up and have dinner with a family who live on a small finca - it was near the start of the trip so conversation was a bit laborious - mainly consisting of them looking confused and me searching on my iPhone Spanish dictionary for an elusive word! But the food was the best meal I had in Cuba - real Comida Criolla - everything on my plate had been grown or reared on the farm
                                                         Beautiful Vinales countryside
        This is cowboy country! Very few farmers have a car - nearly all get around in carts or they ride
The Vinales area was great for walking running and cycling and if you are adventurous you can climb the   limestone karsts - The Mogotes - which you can see in the pictures
Sugar cane growing near the Mogotes in Vinales and a final word from Raul (Cubans always refer to their politicians by first names)
                  "Beans are as important as guns" !!- is it any wonder he's not as popular as Fidel! :-)