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Cuba - Pinar del Río - Viñales16 Dec 2005
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Viñales
Viñales
Viñales
¡Hola, mi amol!
A small town full of colonial houses, each painted in a different colour, old Soviet and American cars, painted as well in different colours, and the beauty of Viñales' karst limestone hills or "mogotes"...
We spent five very relaxing days in Viñales, stayed at the home of Mileidys and Borys and had long chats with them every evening. Borys was sent to the war in Angola when he was only 18 and when Borys Jr. was only 45 days old. You can imagine how many things he had to tell and how interesting it was to listen... Viñales is a cute small town where everybody knows everybody and where nearly everybody knew us after a few days hanging around its main street and its beautiful surroundings. We visited a tobacco plantation where a lovely family gave us some "yuca" (sweet potato) to try and made a few cigars (right there, on the spot) for us to take home with us. We walked around and inbetween the mogotes (and thought for a second we were back in Yanghuo, China): Dos Hermanas, Palenque de los Cimarrones, Cueva del Indio, Valle de Viñales, Mogote Central...
We had our first cigars in Cuba, tasted the typical "arroz moro" (arroz con frijoles), talked to Ceferino (who was neither for nor against the revolution, but had honest admiration for El Comandante), had a bath in a swimming-pool with a view to the mogotes (for free!) and met Josu, Iñaki and Bixente (three guys from the Basque Country that became friends).
We were sorry to leave Viñales behind but we had planned that our last week in Cuba we would take a holiday from travelling and find a nice beach where we could do nothing all day, so... off to Trinidad!
See you there!
Idoia & Mikel.
