"maybe they’ll have wifi" ROFL I'm a tard. It's almost 6pm of day
three and holy fuck yesterday alone felt like a week had gone by in a day.
Cuba's lovely, but fucking hot as =.= I'm constantly gleaming with sweat, okay
tbf it's not that hot, it's just humid and the sun feels stronger when you walk
directly under it. I'm in my room with my roomie sleping in the bed next to me,
we're in a town called Vinalles doing a
homestay. All throughout Cuba it's very common that people rent out a room and
offer food services to toursits, I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that the
government gives people kind of like a grant of somekind or tax
deductions...some kind of benifit. This town in particular seems to live off
the tourism so it's full of casas particulares (home stay accomodation), plus
it's full of farmlands that grow everything from Tabaco, bananas, pinapples,
frigoles, rice to different kinds of potatoes. This place is beautiful, very
tropical but sort of reminds me of mainland Fiji, plus it has these beautiful rock formations in the Valley of
Silence called Mongotes that are made of limestone. But let's start where I
left off.
On day one we had our first meeting at 6:30pm in the hotel. There's quite a
few of us, 4 germans, 2 norweigns, 1 korean, 1 chick from Hong Kong, 3 dudes
from Ireland, 1 old British guy who married a super hot Cuban girl a quarter
his age, a colombian girl and me! Fifteen all up, I'm the youngest by about 5
years, most people seem to be in finance or marketing, we have 2 lawyers, a
disabilities worker and an engineer. Everyones pretty chill, no ones gotten on
my nerves so far, but my German roomie is fucking nuts and doesn't like
sleeping with the aircon on *twitch* After our meeting half of the girls hung
around and we waiting until it was time for dinner. Our guide Ivan took us to a
swankier looking restaurant down the road from where we were staying and the
food was lovely, plus they had a live band playing and a group of white old
people who clearly just finished up a dance class and were trying out their
skills. As soon as they started dancing I ran off and joined them haha and was
followed by the Colombian girl shortly after. We only danced two songs but it
defs got me into the mood of this whole trip. I had these awesome garlic grawns
and this lemonade with fresh pinapple juice which was AHmazing. Everyone
chatted away but we all seemed pretty stiff around each other. Afterwords me,
the irish dudes, our guide and two of the girls decided to go drinking/dancing
seeing as it was Saturday night so Ivan our guide took us to this beautiful
rooftop bar nearby. Drinks are so cheapppp everwhere XD But it was sorta lame,
we didnt dance and the girls all had a bottle of water and the dudes drank a
beer and then we went back to our hotel rooms. Decent start. There's one blond
chick from Germany who has a very strong personality, she's lived in the UK and
currently in Miami so her english is fantastic but I swear, she's on the verge
of being too much, and almost always about to put her foot in it, saying stupid
things and making idiotic assumptions. The kind of person who tells you stories
about all these people we've never met and sort of laughs before she's finished
and just ends everything with 'it was crazy'. I'm sure it was =.=
DAY 2:
After 6 hours sleep we got up to get breakfast and make sure we were ready
by 9am to get on the bus and head to Vinales which was about 4 hours away.
Before leaving Havana our bus took us around the town to have a looksee, Havana
is right on the coast but we were closest to Havana Viejo which didn't seem to
have any swimming beaches but i did see several people fishing and some forts to
protect themselves from all those pirates back in the day. We went past a part
of town where all the rich people live, the houses were massive and
spectacular, kind of reminded me of a mix between american homes of the 1960's
and big country manors of the south where they had slaves out the back. Along
our way to our next town we did a pitstop at a bar with a small tabaco
plantation and drying house. Pina Collada numero uno =D DELICIOUS. Although it
tastes better without rum =P I had one made by a friend once which was
absolutely disgusting but these have been good. Tabaco planting doesn't occur
until Novemeber so we're a bit early so none of the fields we've seen are
growning yet but they had part of the drying house set up to show us what it's
like. The government here forces people to produce tobacoo if their land is
capable and if they can't they give that land to someone else, clearly it's a
big deal here to the economy. Farmers are expected to give 90% of their crop to
the government and they can do what they like with the rest which people tend
to just make their own cigars to sell to tourists, family and friends. They let
the plants grow for 3 months and then they cut the flower off which shunts the
growth of the plant and then start harvesting the leaves which takes a little
because they only take 2 leaves per day starting from the bottom and each plant
produces about 18 I think they told me today. Then they dry the leaves in these
barns that every farm has for a few months. Then they send off the leaves to
the government where they start their fermenting process. The government cigars
are really heavily controlled once they're in the factories and the workers can
earn almost as much as doctors here. It's a very skilled trade aparently and
they have certain people who are dedicated to checking quality by size, colour,
smell and how well they smoke so yup, there's someone sitting around smoking
cigars all day and getting paid. One faulty cigar from the batch and their all
sent back to the factory and they figure out exactly whose fault it was.
So that stop off was fairly quick, maybe 30mins and we kept driving onto
vinales stoping off at a look out along the way that overlooked the valley and
Mongotes you can see from the town. Pina Collada numero dos. Back on the bus we
got and headed off to a spot for lunch. It was absolutely gorgeos, it was
outdoors on this kind of treehouse type platforms on the edge of a ridge so we
were overlooking the Valley. Finally a breeze. They gave us so much food! But
it wasnt quite as good as the place we had diner the night before. That took at
least 2.5 hours and then we made it to our homestays. We're all located on the
same street so once we had it figured out and dumped our shit we went on a
quick walking tour of the town to figure out where we could find what we need
like banks and corner stores and the pubs of course. Every store is more like
the front room of a house and there are 4 corner stores in the whole town that
count as their supermarkets, I've only gone in one so far and it didnt seem to
have any fresh produce or meat so Im not entirely sure where they buy that
stuff from. Once we got back from our walk, we cleaned up a bit and our house
mum made us 'sandwhiches' and salad which was bread that tasted a lot like a
hot dog bun with cucumbers and a sliced up hot dog. They seem to eat a lot of
hot dog meat here o.O Must be cheaper to make. Then a little bit after that we
met up with our group again and headed off to the pub which again, not really
like a proper venue. It was more a store room where they kept the alcohol and
the patrons sit outside on white plastic lawn chair type furniture. I
immediatly ran off because we were infront of the town Plaza next to the Church
and there was a festival going on XD HAPPY DAYS. Turns out it was national
celebration of their Culture day so they had all these typical dances and
singers. I came back, had a drink and ended up going off again with a few of
the girls to sit closer to the action. Once that was over it turned into a dance
party XD I was in mah grooooove. I love to dance, more so when it's out in the
open, it's always so much more exciting XD Luckily I'm not the only one who
dances but it did take a tiny bit of convincing lol. It was me, the colombian,
the almost-obnoxious german, hong-kongian adn eventually the Cuban girl. It was
great and lol the old town drunks tried to dance with us and the locals too but
we deflected well haha. I don't know why I always get the most attention from
the homeless town drunkards, lol no matter where I go, haha he was nice though,
he picked a flower and gave it to me, I put it in the german chicks hair.
At midnight that shut down but right next door is the towns only dance club
so we round up the group who were still drinking across the road from the plaza
because that pub shut down too and we went in. FUCK that was good XD So much
dancingggg, and we finally got everyone to dance lol all the Europeans super
self-conscious that they don't seem to have the ability to move their hips whatsoever
lol but they tried and it was good XD The locals would try to teach us how to
salsa, I got spun more times than a bayblade and I was absolutely dripping with
sweat but totes worth it. That closed at 1am and so we went to bed.
OH our house mum just finished making us diner so I'll finish up what we've
done today on day 3 post-foods =D
