Saturday morning we got up early try and find a cave with a swimming hole mentioned in the Lonely Planet. We received some vague directions from our host’s nephew: ‘a right at the end of the block, go straight as long as you can, then turn right and ask somebody where the entrance is’. We passed many skinny horses and also farmers who greeted us with a tip of the hat, or a quiet “Buenos”. A few people asked if we wanted to rent horses to ride while we were still near the town center. But soon, we were in the less traveled path (though the tourists that travel to Viñales are the backpacker type, not easily discouraged by distance. Anyway, when we inquired about our cave mostly people made a vague gesture ahead and said ‘over there’. We are accustomed to this type of direction. Where can I find ______? “that way”. At one point, after about half an hour of walking through the gorgeous Cuban countryside and surrounded by Tobacco fields and Migotes, we approached a small wooden house where a small boy his father, and what appeared to be his father’s father getting ready to go to the fields. After asking after our cave, the oldest gentlemen told us he would accompany us down the road a ways on his horse in the right direction (free of course, I won’t charge you anything- he assured us). We talked with him about some of the things we’ve heard from city Cubans.
“Is it true” we asked “that a man would serve more years in prison for killing a cow than for killing another man?”
He chuckled a bit and replied “Yes. Even the cows I have raised all my life, I don’t own”.
This of course leaves without answer about the capital penalty of killing the government’s livestock. It was an interesting question to discuss with him. During this walk we thought we heard water. We asked him about it and were detoured through his pasture (don’t mind the animals, they won’t hurt you!) to a valley between migotes. We thanked him and explored a little bit before settling down and eating a picnic lunch alone in the countryside. It was pristine. Half an hour later we were back on our pursuit after carefully closing the gate to the pasture as we had been instructed.
Not far after, as we passed one house on a hill a pair of women asked us to come talk with them. We introduced ourselves and explained what we were doing in the area (searching for a cave which at this point we were pretty certain we weren’t going to find). They invited us for coffee and assured us, that, as this is the country, they couldn’t charge anything, they were simply inviting us for the talk. It was such a kind gesture. Unfortunately, Katie didn’t feel wonderful, and we declined but promised to stop by if we passed back the same way and they were still outside. “Even if we aren’t outside! Come on into the kitchen” they insisted as we continued.
Eventually we got fed up with directions such as “turn left after the big house coming up" (trust me, there were no big houses) and we gave up. We turned around but traveled in a parallel path back to try and find the mural painted after the revolution by Diego Rivera along a giant rock face. We found it alright. It is… bizarre. I personally think it is ugly and jarring. As we passed the house across the “street” (path) from the rock face/a tourist restaurant I asked the couple outside if “they liked the mural, or if they thought it was ugly?” Luckily I mumbled the second half of my question. It turns out the man was one of the original painters. He told us what everything symbolized. The red alien people are supposed to be the indigenous people of Cuba. I have NO idea what the shells represent or even what the thing in the middle is. I’ll let you be the judge dear art critic readers:
Viñales continued:
Warning: I’m simply going to continue to write about the events from our weekend away in the country. Really nothing too cultural or specific to Cuba so… skip it! You can see by now that i’m clearly not good with brevity.
Anyway, to continue. We arrived back at our casa particular with dirt in our shoes and a pleasant sense of exhaustion. A short nap later we sat in two metal rocking chairs in the patio. People from the house came to check if we had found the cave and were overall very friendly. They asked what we were doing for dinner. We had bought some bread rolls and told them we were probably just going to settle for that. Now, this experience was unlike many others we’ve had in this country because I think our hosts were very well off. The owner of the houses brother lived with his wife in Germany and seems to send euros home during his early visits. Of course, they also have access to the many times more valuable CUC rather than just national money. Anyway, one of the guys proclaimed that one simply could not eat dinner with out meat (a large population of Cubans can’t afford meat with dinner- or any other meal). Everything worked out in our benefit. “These poor students need meat” they proclaimed and disappeared into the kitchen. They returned with mojitos, tomatoes sliced with salt and some vinegar (which is salad here) and sliced chorizo with a really good sauce. We shared food (and contributed some star fruit we were given at a beautiful local orchid garden that morning), played dominoes, Katie won a game of dominoes, immediately stopped playing dominoes, and practiced Spanish. It was clear that the gentlemen in the family expected us to go out to the disco with them after all their generous mojitos, but we decided to go to bed at 1030 instead.
Sunday we woke up early. We had breakfast at the house and rented two old bicycles with questionable breaking systems. When we picked up the bikes, the man who lent them to us asked what time it was. 9:00 I told him. He asked a guy biking past. 10, he called over his shoulder. It turns out our early start was shifted an hour by daylight savings. Considering we had to catch a bus later, this could have been bad. Anyway, it was nice being in a city that was a bit more bike friendly than Havana. We biked into the national park and were honked at by tourist buses to move over and had a wonderful time. We settled on stopping for a natural cave that was actually on the map and walked through, finishing our tour behind a giant group of ‘Canadian dance troupe kids’. It was fun, but I’m not sure I’d do it again. Regardless, cave- check!
We took the bus home, a little reluctant to be done with our wonderful trip away.
Wow! I thought the mural was much smaller until I saw the four people on horses in the lower right!
ReplyDeleteit is huge- the painter was describing how he (right alongside Fidel Castro) was hoisted up on ropes to paint the rocks.
ReplyDelete