Vinales, day 2

March 31 -

At 11:00 our guide arrives, well, it's not Alfredo, but his brother Willem, who is on a motor scooter and is going to guide us to where we will find our guide for the day.  We are assuming that it will be Alfredo, but it is Ishmael.  

He looks the part, tall, dark, looks good in a cowboy hat and best of all is wearing rubber boots with spurs on them!  How cool is that....as the day progressed, we realized that spurs were an accessory, not a necessity, since these horses were "automatico" in that they knew the route and exactly where

and when the stops were.  Our horses were named, Lucio (Bills), Mojito (mine) and a big beautiful horse for the guide, don't know his name.   You can see Bill on Lucio at left, and the head of my horse, Mojito, who had a strange habit of putting his head right up against Lucio’s butt….

We ambled along a dusty path for quite some time....Alfredo sold us the tour with 15 minutes of horse riding, which I was ok with, more not what I was looking for....but that is not what was happening, we were on the horses for about 40 minutes or so before we hit the first rest stop.  The Mirador,  coconut hut, swimming hole, etc.  We had about a 30 minute break at this place before saddling up again.  After the first 15 minutes, I was ok with the horse, Mojito was calm and easy going until later....

Saddle up muchachos, we ride again.  Getting on the horse was hysterical even for me.  The distance up onto the horse was tremendous, much higher than I expected so I needed a booster push which Ishmael provided much to Bill's chagrin, as he needed a booster push as well.

On to the Cueva de los Silencios.  At first, we thought, WTF, it's just a hole in the ground, but then the guide showed up and led us into the cave, handed out flashlights and off we went.  It was a very rocky floor and some very narrow passageways.  There were some very neat rock formations and stalagmites and stalactites as well as gorgeous bursts of sunlight through some hole in the cave roof.  We came out into the air and walked up a dusty steep path to where the horses were tied.

Boosted up again onto Mojito, who wanted to be in the lead, but Bill's horse, Lucio was not going to give it up.  In fact, the one or two times Mojito took the lead, Lucio would come up and sort of push us to the edge of the path (think thin strip of grassy stuff and then barbedwire fences.  Not my kind of a fun way to end up in a Vinales hospital.

my new friend

We headed to a coffee "plantation", which is a broad stretch of that word.  Here is where Mojito was renamed "Bastard", I pulled him off to the left toward a tree that looked ok to tie him up, and Ishmael said, "Mojito" and the horse started moving through the branches which if I hadn't put my hand up would have whipped me in the face,  Hence the new name...

It was a sales station for liquor made from local fruit, the guava, and some sugar cane juice.  There were 2 kinds, sec and sweet, we tried the sec, and it was pretty sweet, can't imagine how sweet the sweet version is.  The juice was about 38% alcohol, which is not too strong, proof-wise, 76 proof.

Then the hilarity starts when our "coffee" salesman tries to boost me up on the horse, I am laughing so hard that I fall across the back of the horse.  I slide down and Ishmael helps me up.  Still laughing, off we go to the tobacco "plantation".  At this point, we realize that these are all going to be sales stops.

The tobacco farm was different.  The young man who was our guide spoke excellent English so that our questions were understood and we could visualize the process of drying the leaves and the picking theory much better.  We went up to the cabin and his cousin came out with his dad and they rolled a cigar that we shared....much to my surprise, I really enjoyed it.  The cigars made with tobacco from Vinales are organic and fermented with a local process that doesn't use chemicals.  They also strip out the vein in the leaf after it's fermented because that is where 85% of the nicotine is located, therefore less nicotine is in the cigar itself.  

I smoked that bad boy all the way to where we dumped off the horses and all the way walking back into town.  It went out and I held onto that stub until we settled into a drinking establishment where I lit up again.  

Two days in a row we were unable to take the tourist bus that went around town.  It stopped running at 3, and damn, if we weren't there just before 3.  We went into the tobacco/liquor store and I purchased 2 pyramide cigars and then down the street a wooden holder.  Happy as a clam.

We got a taxi to take us up to the Cuevo Indios. 

He said that he would do it for 10 CUC return and he was happy to wait for us!  Deal.

This cave was much larger than the one we saw earlier.  The path was paved so it was easier to navigate and no guide necessary. 

The path led you deeper and deeper into the cave and you could hear water.  For the last 100 yrs of the cave, you needed to take a boat to get out.  It was very dramatic exiting from the dark and artificially lit cave into the sunlight while gliding on a motor boat.  

Our taxi driver offered to take us to see the Palenque do Cimerones  which was a huge natural opening in one of the limestone karsts that was set up as a dance and music club.  It was full of chairs waiting for the customers that evening.

 

We had dinner at El Olivo, because on our riding we rode past their organic farms.  The gazpacho was really tasty as were the croquettes, but the carbonara was pretty bad, as was Bill's lasagna.  I just wanted to march back to the kitchen and say,"look, here is how you make carbonara, no cream, salty hard cheese grated, pancetta, black pepper, and a whisked egg.  In a frying pan big enough to hold the cooked spaghetti, render the fat from the pancetta.  If it's pretty lean, add some olive oil.  Turn off the flame, add black pepper and wait for the spaghetti to be cooked.  After you have added the pasta, mix and mix, add cheese and whisked egg.  Mix some more, you want the heat of the spaghetti to cook the egg and finish with more black pepper and/or cheese.  Done!"

Back to the abode and sleep because we trek to Havana tomorrow.