Hello from Cuba (3) - Hiking Vinales and Exploring Nature
Hotel Havana Libre, Tuesday, April 5, 2005, 6:54 pm
On Sunday it was gorgeous. The cold front had finally passed
through, the rain was gone and we had a beautiful warm sunny
day without any humidity.
Farmland and red earth around Vinales.
My hostess is also a guide for the National Park System and
Vinales is a nationally protected natural habitat. She had
a tour planned through a side valley of Vinales (Valle del
Ancon) with 3 participants, an older couple from Germany and
me.
The tour was fabulous, we got picked up by a local in a taxi
and went about 20 minutes outside of town and got dropped
off at a local primary school, which had several communist
slogans painted on the outside. Political graffiti, paintings
and message boards are extremely common in Cuba. Although
there is no western style advertising, there are plenty of
political slogans (a collection of a few of which I will summarize
at a later point).
Political slogans.
This is a very strange experience when you come from a Western
capitalist country like Canada, and then you see all these
political slogans about Communism and defending the Revolution.
Truly fascinating indeed, a completely different world.
On our 3 hour trip we walked through local fields, were told
about local wildlife, special birds (the
Cuban Tocororo, Turkey vultures and other birds. We also
heard about local farming which still takes place with human
labour, manual ploughs and oxen. We were introduced to crops
such as Malanga (pureed and given to babies), Yucca, various
types of sweet potatoes, corn and yams.
One of the highlights was a 20 minute walk through a limestone
cave through one of the Mogote hills. We saw some interesting
stone formations and even strange pale plants growing inside
the pitch-dark cave. Our guide had illuminated the cave with
a strong flashlight for the 4 of us and it was a pretty easy
walk with no cave-dwelling animals in sight, only one political
slogan spray-painted in the cave (apparently this was a hideout
for the revolutionary army at some point..).
Old Farm House in Vinales.
After exiting the cave, we ended up in an uninhabited small
valley completely surrounded by mountains and we ran into
a local farmer of 60 years, whose leathery face and slim body
gave him the appearance of an 80 year old man, evidence of
many decades of sun and hard work.
He had a flock of turkeys (with 61 young chicks), a dog and
some fields of corn and beans. And he generally spends most
of his days working manually in this little valley, completely
isolated, sometimes staying overnight in a single hut made
from the wood and leaves of the royal palm tree, Cuba´s national
tree. No radio, no TV, no sanitation, no kitchen, just a wooden
bed with a blanket in a hut with an earthen floor. Again a
reminder of how different life can be in this country....
Then we crossed over a small mountain range and back into
the Valle del Ancon, where we saw a Casa Campesino, a traditional
farm house/museum, which had also been visited a few years
ago by Fidel Castro. Next to the farm house is a beautiful
river that exits from a cave and 3 young cuban teenage boys
were swimming and jumping into the water and having a ton
of fun. The entrance to the cave is also surrounded by wasp-hives
(if that word exists), so there are tons of wasp dwellings
hanging down from the rock formations.
Architecture in Vinales.
We took the taxi back into town and I had another 3 hours
or so before my departure with the Viazul bus. 2 local teenage
boys, Rider and Rigo, approached me (truly in the style of
the underground economy), offered me to rent a bicycle for
$3 and to take me to a Paladar or private restaurant. I thought,
why not, they seemed pretty decent. So I took the 3rd bike
and rode up with them into the hills above Vinales.
There they introduced me to a local family and the lady of
the house served me with a complete vegetarian meal for $8.00.
Afterwards I rented the bike for $2 for 1 hour and I rode
around Vinales and outside of town a bit to take some photos
of the Mogotes. The bike tour, even though extremely short,
was a great way of exploring the town and surroundings.
At 4 pm I hopped back on the Viazul bus and went back to La
Havana (Havana). At 7:30 or so I arrived at the Viazul
bus station and I ended up taking a "Cocotaxi", a yellow 3-wheeler
type of scooter taxi with a rounded yellow roof partially
covering the 2 seats in the back and the driver in the front.
The Cocotaxi driver was initially fixing his vehicle since
a tire had blown out and he was changing the wheels. The ride
took about 20 minutes to the hotel and was definitely an experience.
He then inisted on inviting me for a drink and I told him
immediately that I was not interested in any funny business,
that I was a married woman, only here to study Spanish and
not interested in romance. (Romantic approaches by Cuban men
and women of foreigners are very common here).
He said no problem, he just wanted to talk and we sat down
for a conversation that was reasonably pleasant for a while
until he started to make the moves on me, some very verbally
explicit ones by the way. I never felt physically threatened,
especially since he was about as short as me, but I definitely
got annoyed with him and he apologized at the end for his
behaviour.
Nevertheless that brief experience taught me to curb my friendliness
and my openness a little bit with the locals, since things
can be very easily misunderstood in this culture....
Another lesson learned....
Interesting and useful books about Cuba:
Related Articles:
"My
Post-Cuba Reflections: Appreciation and Balance"
"Cuba
is Calling - Why I selected Cuba as my language study destination"
Hello from Cuba (1) -
First Impressions"
"Hello from Cuba (2) - Rain
in Vinales"
"Hello from Cuba (3) - Hiking
Vinales and Exploring Nature"
"Hello from Cuba (4) - Bureaucracy
Galore - The University of Havana"
"Hello from Cuba (5) - Another
Mind-Twisting Experience"
"Hello from Cuba (6) - The
Student Experience and Political Insights"
"Hello from Cuba (7) - Fun
and Recreation"
"Hello from Cuba (8) - Bicycle
Rides, Camellos and Cannon Shots"
"Hello from Cuba (9) - Havana
Neighbourhoods"
"Hello from Cuba (10) - A
Country Excursion"
"Hello from Cuba (11) - Inside
a Cuban Home"
"Hello from Cuba (12) - Contrasts
and Contradictions"
"Hello from Cuba (13) - Exploring
Downtown Havana"
"Hello from Cuba (14) - Field
Trips and Interviews"
"Hello from Cuba (15) - Getting
ready to say 'Goodbye, Havana'..."
"Hello from Cuba (16) - The
final day"