Vinales

From the architectural jungle of Havana to the open rural valley of Vinales, a journey westwards of 260-odd kilometres. Our guide settled down to explain the complexities of a completely centralised agrarian economy which appeared to most of us as incomprehensible as Europe's Common Agricultural Policy. Basically, no one can own land but they can rent it as long as they sell their produce to the government. Cuba appears to have adult literacy rates, health care and available food-per-capita that are the envy of many Latin American countries. But to achieve the latter they still use ration cards, something our parents would shudder at. After the revolution, evil America tightened its embargo so the only aid for Cuba was from the Soviet Union. They supplied "architects" (monolithic concrete tower blocks are still in evidence), bulk food such powdered potato and industrial-sized tins of vegetables, and, oh by the way, could you look after these nuclear missiles for us, please? Then, when the Soviet Union withdrew its support (they were having problems of their own at the time) the Cuban economy suffered badly for a while. Now, there seems to be a bit of a minor revolution in the way that they are learning to be self sufficient again. Since the relaxations of regulations in the 90s, the privately-run paladars now are offering a greater culinary variety than usually found in the state-run restaurants.

Our ride took us to Las Terrazas, an important ecotourism site for Cuba containing a small working community. Prior to the revolution, the French cut all the trees down and imported slaves to grow coffee. However, they weren't very good at it. Because it rains a lot in this region all the soil was washed away within a couple of years. In 1971 the government promoted a reforestation project and encouraged the locals in farming and self-sufficiency. We stopped here for a walk and an iced liqueur coffee which I am sure was the cause of much use of the toilets for the following 24 hours. Memo to self: you can have as much rum in your drink as you like but lay off the milk. We also had a huge lunch here in a rickety elevated restaurant run by a very happy family that was just big enough to support the 27 of us and, of course, a band. (Actually, they were a lot of fun -- once you get away from the "mariachi"-style of 1guitar + 1 maracas you get more interesting saxophone/trumpet/guitar/bongo combos. In fact, I get the impression that Cuban music is worth a great deal more examination but as my musical tastes, like my tastes in literature, are limited, I'll spare you that.)

Eventually, we arrived at the shocking pink Hotel Los Jizmenes looking over the edge of the Vinales valley. Saga had a good reason for block-booking this place: location, location, location. I attach a picture of the pool bar and swimming pool area to give you a clue. It overlooks the whole valley and as the day progresses the colours change from our balcony (or bar) window. Saga pay the local porters 1 kook per passenger to carry our bags from the coach to our rooms. It is an example of the topsy-turvy economy over here that the manager promoted himself to porter because, as a manager, he would only be paid a monthly salary of around 15 kooks: as a porter he received 27 kooks for our bus alone. One wonders whether tourism, while obviously providing the government with much needed cash for infrastructure repairs, is not also destabilising the ideology of equal pay for everyone somewhat.

From here we are taken two miles into Vinales town, a three-avenue village that seems to be benefitting from the relaxation to renting rooms to tourists (all profits to the government, of course). There are literally hundreds of freshly, brightly painted houses advertising spare rooms. And, as we stopped at one of the many bars to get out of the sun, we watched a large number of backpackers come and go, mostly to queue up at the government ETESCA, the only officially recognised method of using telecommunications (i.e. the internet --- seriously, the Saga-choiced hotels have excellent bandwidth, but the rest of the country . . . Meh!). The tours continued with extreme sports like "let's take the wrinklies down a prehistoric cave and boatload them out to daylight". Amazingly, we never lost a soul but those of us who were still suffering from an excess of liqueur and milk the day before were begging for a faster trip to the surface. Don't tell me these Saga tours are risk free! Other tours included a visit to a mural painted on the mountain side where, spookily, it was also cocktail o'clock: pina coladas for 3 kooks --- pour your own rum (needless to say, they kept running out of rum).

Let me leave you with a view from our hotel room balcony over the Vinales valley at sunrise.