One hundred eighty kilometers and one hundred eighty degrees from Havana lies Viñales, a small town bordering the scenic Viñales valley. In Havana you wake to the morning motorbikes; in Viñales to roosters crowing in series as if someone keeps hitting the snooze alarm. In Havana the buildings are grimy and the streets potholed; In Viñales the buildings are pristine and the streets, well, still potholed.
Between Havana and Viñales lies Las Terrazas, a reforested, locally managed nature reserve in Artemisa Province aimed at promoting sustainable tourism.
The reserve includes the Buena Vista coffee farm, which (as its name indicates) overlooks a lush valley.
The farm preserves several structures from an old plantation and is home to Café de Maria, a small restaurant that serves beer in cups barely larger than the ones you use to rinse your mouth in the dentist’s office (the food was decent enough). (How’s that for some in-depth travel reporting?!)
In the adjacent town of Las Terrazas, we visited the studio of Lester Campa, a wonderful artist who has exhibited worldwide. Campa’s work is fascinating in addition to beautiful; some of his pieces can be viewed in two entirely different ways.
His art mostly depicts the local area in his highly individual style, but I was particularly taken with a drawing of John Lennon dressed as Che Guevara, which is now being framed. (You can see it here if you’re interested.)
Viñales is in the westernmost province of Cuba, Pinar del Rio. It’s an agricultural region known for the quality of its tobacco (attested to by several members of our group on a visit to a local cigar maker), coffee (personally attested to at a local coffee farm) and produce, which we enjoyed at two nearby, privately-owned restaurants.
We were fortunate to have several guides in addition to Will and Claudia: one human (Alexis) and several canines (names unknown). Alexis, who could easily be “el alcalde” (the mayor) of Viñales – he knows and seems loved by everybody in town – walked us along several “senderos” (paths) between the town and the mountains beyond. En route, he educated and entertained us about the area, its people, and its natural bounty and beauty.
We were accompanied on this walk, virtually from step one, by a tag team of local dogs, who appear to be quite well organized: one dog brought us through town to the path, where we were met by another, which eventually ceded jurisdiction to a third, which stayed with us almost to the end. In fact, if you’ll indulge my anthropomorphic flight of fancy, I believe central dispatch was directly across the street from our guest house. While I was rocking on the patio with a cup of early morning coffee, a steady parade of pups greeted the two mutts living across the street then headed off to points beyond, presumably having been given their orders for the day. (There are lots of stray dogs in Cuba, but they’re not at all threatening, except to the soles of your shoes.)
Viñales has a tidy main street replete with cafes, bars, a bookstore, and a Catholic church. Well-kept houses adorned with brilliant blossoms line the nearby lanes. However, this veneer of modernity vanishes as soon as you walk two blocks to the farms. There, ox teams plow the fields and crops are processed as if it were still colonial times.
As I mentioned a couple of paragraphs ago, we visited two farmers, one who grew coffee and one tobacco.
The coffee farmer showed us the entire process of making coffee, starting with the just-picked “cherries” (what coffee beans are called) and ending with a delicious jolt of caffeine.
Not a single step involves automation. (I enjoyed the coffee so much I bought a bag and have been sipping it for breakfast all week.)
Likewise, the tobacco grower explained how tobacco is planted, harvested, and stored and then gave an entertaining cigar-rolling presentation, accompanied by samples of a delicious rum.
Following the demonstration, we ate lunch (with more rum) at the adjacent café while taking in life in the Viñales valley – including three impressive turkeys.
The rich farmland of Viñales assures that local restaurants have a steady supply of fresh produce. We ate at two of them for dinner: Finca Agroecológica “El Paraíso” the first night (this restaurant is organic and grows its own ingredients) and Balcón del Valle the second.
Both are quite good, and our dinner at Balcón del Valle was preceded by a marvelous cooking demonstration by the restaurant’s chef.
I consider Viñales a must-see stop on any trip to Cuba. It shows a different part of Cuban life than you find in Havana, and the setting is stunning. If you go, I can recommend the guest house where I stayed, Casa Horizontes (“Lidia y Fernandito”). The place is spotless, the owners are very nice, the AC works well, and it’s a half block off the main street of town.
The next post will stop at an art center tasked with training young artists and bringing culture to remote parts of Cuba, the infamous “Bay of Pigs,” and the beautiful city of Cienfuegos. Hasta entonces!
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