On the road to Viñales

We got up in the morning, and grabbed a quick breakfast in the city before taking a bici-taxi to the Viazul bus terminal.  From there we hopped on the CUC$12 bus en route to Viñales in the province of Pinar del Rio.  The ride was fairly quick - and we passed through a beautiful national park.  We stopped at a tourist stop (a building who's only purpose is to sell items to tourists on buses passing through).  The most interesting part of travelling on these Vaizul buses (which were actually quite nice and luxurious by Cuban standards) was that the majority of tourists were actually Cuban.  We got out of the bus and passed on purchasing anything at the food/bar they had there as again - it was very expensive.  We thought ahead and purchased water / supplies at a store in Habana.  It was quite warm, and the ice cold Cubatas looked inviting, but we held strong and went for a walk around the park.

We hopped back on the bus as everybody seemed to do and continued our road to Viñales.  Viñales is a small town in the most beautiful part of Cuba (in our opinion).  Driving into town it only seems like the town is one road.  Sure enough as we pull up to the bus station, hoards of locals with Casa Particular signs show up and block most people from getting off the bus.  Some even come on the bus to try and find people to come stay at their place.  We had already booked a place online in Canada (we had only booked two places ahead of time, 2 nights in Habana - which we never made it to, and 3 nights in Viñales).  We politely declined everybody's offer but got to talking to one lady who was very friendly and knew some English.  "Where are you staying?" she asked.  We showed her the name and she said "I know where this is, it's my neighbor - she was my school teacher!".  Now our initial reaction was to go our own way - but she seemed sincere and this town did not look threatening in the least.  

We chatted as we walked toward their place and she told us a bit about the town.  Walking down the side dirt roads I was immediately in love with this town.  Beautiful mountain backdrops, farming fields, children running around playing - its was amazing.  We arrived at our Casa to meet our lovely soon to be host.  She explained however, that since we've arrived a day early, there was already people staying at her place.  Lucky for us, the lady who brought us initially (who lived next door) had room.  We made our way over and stayed with her for the night.  She had a very nice home and we stayed to chat for a bit.  She explained the things to do, and that she obviously knew somebody to contact for each activity.  Her husband was fixing up an old car in front yard in order to be able to offer rides / be a taxi driver in the area.  He was doing all the work himself, as most Cubans do - they are quite handy.

The first thing we wanted to do was rent a bicycle and find our way to the hills.  We spoke to the lady and two boys from town rush over and gave us their bikes for a couple CUCs.  They weren't any special bikes (by any stretch of the imagination) for renting, just two boys who had bikes who were looking to make a couple bucks.  We took the bikes and started to head out of town.  This area is very famous for it's tobacco fields and as soon as we left the small homes the scenery opened up to beautiful farms and fields with lush vegetation.

We continued until we reached a cave that we read about.  Cueva del Indio.  We arrived there to what looked like a party.  There was music and people were dancing in the Cave.  This definitely was not what we were expecting, but we parked our bikes and walked around and through the cave.  Following through the cave, it ended up in a small cultural exhibit.  This place is obviously a tourist trap - but luckily nobody was around after the people from the 'cave dance party' dissipated.  

We turned around and went back to down, not before stopping at a small local eatery.  This was a sit down restaurant, but also offered Peso Pizza - we took this opportunity to have it again and washed it down with a couple Cristal beers.  We went back to our Casa and waited for dinner.  There were two others staying at our casa.  A Lithuanian girl and an american girl who had met travelling and came together to Viñales.  They were eating dinner with us then were heading out for some drinks in the town.  Our host brought out the most amazing dinner.  It had nearly 8 different dishes and had enough food to feed at least 8 people.  We ate and enjoyed our dinner, then I brought the dishes to the back and offered to help with the dishes.  They had also hired help to aid in the cooking in cleaning and they all laughed at me for asking.  I felt bad - there were just so many dishes!

That night the girls and us went to a local Salsa dancing event.  At first it was a show with some amazing dancers, then the floor opened up to everyone.  Skye and I figured we'd give salsa dancing a try once in Cuba so we were going to give it a go.... that is until we saw everyone dancing like experts up there.  We looked at each other and sat back down.  It was all to intimidating - elderly, young, overweight - it didn't matter; they were all amazing.  The other girls we went with had taking some classes in Habana so they felt like they could join in - and did.  Skye and I finished our drinks and snuck out back to our Casa.  We sat outside on some rocking chairs enjoying the quiet and warmth of the night.