The plan was to head East to Viñales first, then catch buses to other points of interest though the rest of Cuba, back to the West of Havana. We hoped Viñales would prove to be more relaxing and less scammy than Havana Vieja. We had been told to expect a rural paradise set in a dramatic valley punctuated by rugged karst mountains.
The bus was right on time. The glorious patterns on the seat promised a good journey.
There was a brief delay of an hour or two as a result of a flat tyre but we made good time on the journey and arrived in the early afternoon.
What we hadn’t done was booked anywhere to stay. We had agreed not to accept any of the offers for accommodation from any of the people waiting at the bus stop and instead walk around town and look for somewhere suitable. As we exited the bus, we pushed our way through the screeching throngs, ‘aire acondicionado‘ ‘agua caliente‘ ‘treinta pesos‘ ‘veinte pesos‘ business cards were thrust into our faces, arms grabbed at our elbows as each casa owner vied for our attention.
We stumbled our way through the throng then a shrill voice in English caught our attention. “Fifteen dollars.” Well, that sounds like a good deal.
We still weren’t convinced, but the charismatic tout-ress saw us waiver for a second. She had us. “Feel free to just come down and look” she said. “You don’t have to stay, but I’m sure you’ll like the place”. Tamara confidently introduced herself, told us that she worked as a school teacher and rented out her home on the side. Her husband offered tours we could have breakfast at her place for a small extra fee, dinner for quite a bit more. We gave in and decided to have a look at what $15 USD would get us. The room did look pretty nice, it was in a quiet and out of the way back property we wouldn’t have found if we’d been looking ourselves. So we signed up for a few days.
The room was certainly nestled in a nice spot.
Tamara was polite and amicable at first. Happy to greet new visitors, she talked about all of the things you could see locally. Conveniently her husband offered tours to see all of it.
Normally we prefer to just wander about on our own, but we said we’d think about what we wanted to do and let her know. She made sure we were settled in and then excused herself to go and wait for the next bus load of tourists. It turns out she used her charismatic confidence in both Spanish and English to help all her neighbours fill the rooms of their houses too.
It looked like we had found a great place to explore the area from. We hoped Viñales would provide the calming rural antidote to the hustly, bustly, scammy, beggy, touty excess of Havana Vieja.
Tamara sold us on a dinner at her house that night. Setting us back the same price as a night’s accommodation, we figured we’d just do that as a one off. Although talk of breakfast in the morning before a horseback tour to some of the areas highlights the next day did sound tempting, we had planned on renting bicycles in town, but Tamara looked at us with sad puppy dog eyes, we couldn’t say no. Tour booked. Viñales was proving expensive, but it did all sound like a lot of fun.
Dinner did not disappoint, we chatted away to a couple of German students who were leaving for Havana the next morning, we all enjoyed a hearty meal. It finished with flan. So we immediately signed up for expensive dinner night two when Tamara asked if we were in.
The next day’s horse-riding trip didn’t quite make our top ten list.
The first stage was a guided trip around a tobacco farm.
“Here’s the hut where we dry the tobacco. Take a photo if you want.”
Ok, don’t mind if we do, we’ll take several, wonder where the farm tour goes next?
“And that’s your farm tour, let’s head out.”
From there we were placed on scrawny, malnourished horses, we weren’t entirely sure that we ought even be riding them.
…uh, are you sure about this horse? I don’t know if he appreciates this…
It looks like maybe Ben should be carrying this horse. Tamara’s husband seemed adamant they were fine with it…
Our tour companions seemed un-phased by the early morning bout of animal cruelty, so the group set out to explore the region on four wobbly stick legs per person.
Really, I’m not sure about this poor horse.
Plodding along, we shortly arrived at our next stop.
The grand mural several stories high, painted by an artist of dubious talent, designed to depict the history of the world from dinosaurs to man. Tamara had told us this would be awesome.
It's definitely big, not really that awesome.
We actually did like it.
We wound through what was actually a pretty scenic valley. The early morning light caught smoke from various burn-offs to create a pretty atmospheric haze around the mountains. Dogs and chickens darted underfoot and we enjoyed a brief glimpse into rural life in Cuba.
We would like to say it was a peaceful ride, but it wasn’t—the horses were going too slow for Mr Tamara, so he would wave sticks at them to get them to scamper a little faster. Every time this happened we were jolted about and nearly launched into orbit, violently tossed about on the miniature (probably children’s?) saddles. Some of the horses hated each other, so there was always the danger of getting caught in a scuffle between them. One chap got a nasty kick from a particularly disgruntled horse.
It was with great relief that we finally arrived at the trip highlight. A cave and underground pool. Surely this would be like one of the sapphire blue cenotes of the Yucatan. We were looking forward to a refreshing swim.
The cave entrance.
We payed the extra entry fee to the cave guide who took a large group of several combined tours. There was only one small light which he was wielding at the front of the large group. This didn’t work out well for one couple—one minute they were there, the next minute they had disappeared into a hole in the ground. The guide sighed and showed the bleeding and injured couple out of the cave, then returned to guide the rest of the group to the underground swimming pool.
Which turned out to be a shallow muddy pool, (rumoured to be a whopping one metre deep at the back). We wandered back out of the cave, not feeling particularly inspired to wade through the mud there, when we knew that all the crystal clear, blue cenotes of the Yucatan were awaiting our return.
Yep. That’s it. Hope it was worth nearly killing the horses for. Enjoy.
Back on the starving horses we were driven on with some menacing stick-waving to a house with a friendly chap who offered us Cocolocos. Only this wasn’t Mexico, it was Cuba, so they didn’t have a fancy name, the guy just offered us a ‘rum drink in a coconut’. We suggest working on your sales pitch Cuba.
Once everyone was sipping away at their rum he told us it would be $2 per drink. Unsurprised, we handed the cash over. Apparently the only thing included in the cost of the tour had been some spindly little horses, I would have actually paid the money to see the horses get the day off and walked around to these ‘highlights’ but apparently that wasn’t a tour option.
We returned to the poor starved horses for the final stretch. Chuckled away as Mr Tamara tried and failed repeatedly in his attempts to entice the wily English tourists with his charms. Well, that was when he wasn’t intimidating the poor exhausted horses into running at a just-fast-enough-to-be-uncomfortable-for-everyone pace. Finally it was over, we could go back to enjoying our travels on our own time without slowly killing horses, without desperately boring caves, without hilariously terrible murals.
Well, it wasn’t over for the horses, they were getting lined up for the next tour group who were coming through. Poor wee buggers.