Day TWO:
Before leaving NYC, I booked a tour to Viñales, which is a town two and a half hours away from Havana( I will leave the contact info in my 6th blog post with my other recommendations). The tour company arranged for a cab to pick us up at 5:00 AM because the tour started at 7:30 AM. This was probably the scariest cab ride ever. It was super dark because there were no street lights and the roads were extremely bumpy. The cab driver was driving SO fast and would hit these “dips” in the road that would wake all of us up because the car would kinda jump… pretty scary. But anyway after this uncomfortable ride, we made it to the town of Viñales. Its so interesting and different from Havana. Since we arrived at 7(ish) AM, the streets were flooded with people making their way to work, and kids on their way to school, either by foot, horse, or bike. We were one of maybe 3-4 cars on the roads, so people definitely knew we were tourists.Once we got to the tour site, we were approached by Ariel, our tour guide and Margarita, the manager. They wasted no time, and got us right on the horses. Raul was another guide who would stay behind the group on his horse and assist us if needed. Ariel’s English was very good so it was in my favor that he was our guide. We rode around the country side and saw where they planted different fruits like pineapples, oranges, mangoes, guava, and crops like rice, sugar cane, and coffee. When we got to the tobacco plantation we dismounted the horses and met a man named Alexis who was the owner of the tobacco operation. Alexis explained the process of picking coffee beans and growing tobacco. (Unfortunately I can’t remember the whole coffee bean process, but I do remember the majority of the tobacco process.)Alexis and Ariel explained that the seeds are thrown onto the plantation and once they start growing, they take them out and space them properly. The whole process is done by hand since they do not use tractors or any other machines since it can pollute the air and effect the crops. Once the plants have grown, there’s a flower at the top that is removed and the growth in height will stop. Once this happens, the leaves will begin to grow wider. Ariel explained that the bigger the leaf, the better and the taller the plant, the smaller the leaves, which is why it is important to remove the flower. The leaves are picked and brought to the drying house. Honestly, after this I was listening but it was hard to follow. But they explained that the leaves are examined for quality and then strung together, put on a wooden pole, and hung up in the drying house. Once he was done explaining the process, Alexis showed us how the leaves look when they are ready to be rolled, they served us some fresh coffee and he showed us how he rolls the cigars. Alexis uses honey to bind the leaves together which gives it a nice smell and adds a little to the taste (IMO). After he rolled the cigar, he lit it for us and passed it around for us to try. The game changer was when he lightly dipped the “head” of the cigar in honey. It changed the taste so much and it was so good! One thing we learned about the tobacco is that the government buys the tobacco from Alexis but they buy 98% of his crops at whatever price they decide it is worth. He gets to keep 2% of his tobacco and sell without a label or brand otherwise he would be competing against the government which isn’t allowed.
After this session with Alexis was over, we walked to the nearby cave. The cave was dark, cool, and filled with bats. It was pretty scary, but fun at the same time. Ariel showed us how the rocks in the caves resemble things like bears, elephants, and even Donald Trump LOL. Once we finally exited the cave, we got back on the horses and rode around the farms again and to a hut that was near a lake where we can swim. We opted out of swimming, but the view was incredible. They also served fresh coconut and cocktails. We sat here for a bit and re-hydrated and got back on the horses since it was close to noon and it was time for lunch. We rode to this “restaurant” where all the crops they use to cook are in the fields surrounding the restaurant. This place was actually pretty busy since most of the tourists were taken here after their tour. The food was INCREDIBLE. We also had no menu, they just started to serve us. We had (in this order): Taro chips, fried something ( it tasted like Yuca, but looked like a tortilla), vegetable soup that tasted like sancocho, plates of vegetables like sweet potato, cabbage, pumpkin, radishes, okra, beets… and I think that’s it. Then they served us several plates of different meats then rice and beans. We ordered some mojitos and piña coladas as well. Once we were done with our meal our cab driver was waiting outside of the restaurant ready to take us back. That two and a half hour ride is so brutal because the seats in this car were so old, but believe me… IT’S WORTH IT.
We arrived back at our apartment at about 4 PM, and we had dinner reservations for 8:30. We rested a bit then got ready to head to “Arte Chef”, Amalia arranged a dinner for us where they taught us how to make mojitos and ropa vieja. Once the demos were done, we were seated in the main dining area and again, no menu, although they did have one, we were just given I guess whatever was a part of this package. The package included the two demos, an appetizer ( a salad for Joel and I and soup for Mike, Jess and Ralph.), entrees (which were either ropa vieja with arroz morro and veggies or rice, beans, and maduros with veggies), flan for dessert, 3 drinks per person, and coffee. THIS PACKAGE WAS ONLY $30 PER PERSON. Can you imagine doing something like this in NYC? It would cost an arm and a leg. After dinner we spoke to the head chef for a while about Cuba and his travels around the world. He must have not wanted us to leave, because every time we tried he would start to talk about something else. He and the other employees were extremely nice and very fun to talk to. Julianne, the woman who performed the mojito demo even exchanged her contact info with us and told us to contact her if we were going out after so we can meet with her. We left the restaurant and roamed the inner streets trying to find a few of the places that Julianne recommended. It was a Thursday night so all of them were pretty dead, so we decided to just walk back to our apartment. On our way back we stopped again at a restaurant that was along the Malecón, this time a different one just to try them out. This place was not all that great and the vibe was just weird. Unfortunately, I can’t remember the names but two of the restaurants we went to along the Malecón were next to a place called Bohemia, and the one we really like had blue chairs, the one we didn’t like had red umbrellas (LOL sorry this is the best description I can give). Anyway… we left that spot and went home. We were all exhausted by then since we had been up since 4 AM.
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