Photos and Cigars

Our morning began like any other - in a hot sweat. We did a photo tour around the valley which was one of the very few things that I was able to arrange before I left the U.S. We went to numerous overlooks with differing views of the valley while being transported around in a blue Dodge from 1950. In between spots, our guide would ask us various questions about the U.S. and what we thought of Trump. 

It was interesting to get his perspective on everything as well. We eventually wound up at a tobacco farm where a man competing for “Most Likely to be Cast as a Cuban Cigar Maker” did a demonstration on how he rolls the tobacco. I am not known to smoke, but I felt an obligation to try one since it was offered to me and I am after all in Cuba. Unfortunately, I don’t really have anything to compare it to. I had an alleged “Cuban” cigar from Key West many years ago, but I don’t really know what makes one cigar better than another. 

All I know is that the cigar I had today was smooth and I didn’t collapse into a coughing fit. Based on what I saw at the tobacco farm, I knew I was smoking something that didn’t have any additives as it was straight up soft tobacco leaves rolled inside a harder tobacco leaf. Is this process different than a high-end cigar you would buy at a store in the states? I don’t know. I feel that perhaps these cigars have developed some kind of mystique due to the embargo. Cigar smokers are a sub culture that I really don’t understand — particularly after today when I apparently had the holy grail of cigars and I was like, “Yeah, it’s alright.” I just don’t see myself sitting at home with a brandy and wearing suspenders while discussing how it’s outrageous that the government is coming after my money. This is what I imagine cigar smokers do on a daily basis while in between rounds of golf.

We drove around a little bit more and the sun was really starting to bake down on us. We were quite sweaty, but it was nothing compared to two gentlemen we saw at the side of the road who welcomed the brief break from their labor while we stopped and snapped some pictures. I can only imagine what is like to do intense manual labor in midday with this weather. I did landscaping in D.C. in the summer, but usually when it got above 90, we went inside for a break and watched Maury on TV. We thought we had been busy for hours and based on the heat we were experiencing would have sworn it was about 1pm, but it was barely 10. 

We thought we might try to go to the beach to the north, but we needed to ensure that we had enough money for the taxi there and back in addition to our transportation tomorrow, so changing money was a necessity. However, the Cuban experience continued and the currency exchange was arbitrarily closed for a few hours in the middle of the day and wouldn’t open until 2:00. We did eventually get there, only to wait in a line that seemed to take about 45 mins to process approximately six people. From there I went to buy internet cards since not knowing anything about the status of our flights tomorrow was a bit disconcerting. By know it was 3:00, and all this standing in line was exhausting so we went back to our casa and relaxed for a bit.