Finally in Viñales

Our casa in Viñales exceeded our expectations (which by now were probably fairly low to be honest), but it appears to have been recently updated. Our host, Carlos had some mango juice brought to us and spoke excellent english. This was a problem in Havana where my iPad app spanish was not adequate to explain our complicated taxi needs. After resting for a little bit, we set out to explore the small town of Viñales. It has a very different feel than Havana. Things are much more calm here and people seem more friendly. We picked a random road to walk down and were not disappointed. 

The road proceeded through fields of tobacco, pineapple, and other stuff. On a couple occasions, people would talk to me and I remained on edge, ready to reject whatever they were selling me, but sometimes people are just being friendly. It takes some getting used to being the city boy that I am. Also, my confidence in my spanish improved drastically as people seem to talk much slower out in the country. It’s like comparing New York to Alabama. Things are just a little slower and drawn out in this part of the island. A man named Raoul greeted us and offered cigars, but I simply said I don’t smoke and he didn’t push it. He continued with pleasant conversation (again in easy to understand spanish) and I asked him if we could hike a bit around his property for pictures and he had no problem with it. 

We walked around some more tobacco fields and into the mountains a bit. Despite some mosquitoes and oppressive humidity, we had a pleasant afternoon in an environment that couldn’t be more different from our time in Havana. As reward for our sweat-inducing exploration of the valley, we stopped back at Raoul’s and bought a few cervezas as refreshment. We sat there a while while Greg finally got his requisite picture of an old man and I asked Raoul for some guava juice which was unlike anything I’ve ever had in Hawaii — mostly because it was straight up guava juice, no additives. That is something I really wish we would have more of in the states. We can have anything we want at any time, any season, but it’s never really . . . fresh.

After taking a shower back at the casa, we headed out to get the traditional Cuban dish called Hawaiian pizza. We saw pineapple fields and we saw pigs, so it was a safe bet that all would be fresh. After sweating profusely from just sitting down, we felt we needed another shower, but we soldiered on and went back to the area where were this afternoon for some dusk photos. After this eventful and adventurous day, we had a couple cervezas back at the casa and called it a night.