Cuba day 16 Vinales

Another rainy day, not inspiring for going out. Luci's foot was improved, but still I insisted she wear a bandage when se wanted to go to the park to connect to internet to find somewhere for us to stay Friday night, a hotel in Havana was what she had in mind, she was sick of casas. Mira was tired, Aleisha feeling ill (mainly in the tummy, but also coughing), so they stayed in the casa. Aleisha had also been devoured by mosquitos last night. I counted around 80 bites on her left leg, 60 on the right leg, 40 on the left arm and 30 on the right arm.

I tried to hire a bile, not so easy because all tours had been cancelled due to the rain so everyone had hired bikes. A English-speaking US couple were also after bikes and in due course a guy turned up offering bikes CUC6 for 3 hours. I complained this was too much so he dropped it to CUC5. The Americans were happy with this and rode off. The guy came back and offered CUC4 until 5pm so I took it. The gears didn't work properly and the brakes were dodgey, but it was good to be going.

I rode out towards the north, past fields and a vege area, then turned right along a road past the Cooperative Republica de Chile (revolutionary slogans and a school inside), in the direction of Laguna de Piedra. It was very quiet, no machines, only a motorbike and a truck in 30 minutes' riding. Pleasant countryside, then at a village I turned off down a little track and there was a lovely view of a lake, and in a rough field an old woman was digging with a knife for boniuta, a tuber. An old man came out of another house with a wooden hoe fashioned froma a branch to help her find more/ It was very picturesque but I wondered what would happern when she could no longer dig for boniuta. Malanga is another tuber, rather like a cross between a potato and sweet potato.

On the way back I was stopped a couple of times by people asking for money, rare in Cuba. Back at the thighway I turned right amd wemt through a chasm between two mogotes. Very beautiful. It is all limestone, so the rock was very erodes. At the base was a cave with a bar inside, tunnels going through the mogote where runaway slaves used to hide. At the end of the tunnels was a restaurant with unusual paintings on some walls.

I rode back towards town, concerned that the girls might have felt stuckin the casa, when to myy surprise I found Mira riding along the same road. We chatted, she continued, I turned off the road up a track and met a 75 year old farmer who told me he worked his farm in partnership with Fidel, selling the produce to the state. He seemed content with the arrangement, but offered to arrange for us to go hore riding tomorrow (CUC4/hour). He showed me a track back to Vinales with the warning there was "mucho fango" on the way. At that stage I didn't realise it meant tracks of water and mud. ruined by the horse traffic.

It was pretty walking through fields of tobacco and corn, with egrets sitting on the cows and horse-pulled ploughs. The track deteriorated and became impassable so I followed a foot track next to a field. But after a while I came across a mother an her two young children. The children had been playing with slingshots, they showed me a sparrow they had stunned but appeared otherwise uninjured. The mum was less friendly, she told me the route to Vinales was not the track next to her fields but the fango track.

After only 3 metres on the fango track a local showed me another track to take which avoided the fango. As he showed me the way he offered to arrange horse-riding for tomorrow, CUC5/hour, saying he would meet me at 8.30 in the morning, and if I wasn't there that would be ok. I asked for his phone number and said if I didn't ring not to wait.

Back in Vinales I looked for Luci but didn't find her, back at the casa she wasn't there either, but Mira and Aleisha were. Mira had had a great afternoon, meeting a local boy who showed her over their farm and restaurant, gave her a free meal of freshly killed kid and pork, and offered to take her (us) hores-riding free in the morning. Luci arrived excited as she had walked up the road to the Hotel Los Jasmines with great views over the valley, and had arranged for us to stay tomorrow night at a casa next door. Not all of us were keen aboout moving, but she said it would be mosquito-free.

Dinner was at the casa, host Misleidis prepared a real banquet of our preferred meals. Later Luci wanted to take me to a bar with live music, but when we got there it had finished so we went on to another where a couple of professional dancers led the way, she pointed out how I should learn from how the Cuban dancers dance.Read more