CUBA - Day 1&2 - Viñales

Going to Cuba has always been a family dream, and luckily this year my mum made that wish come true for us. 

Our first stop on our Cuban trip was Viñales, which is a small town about 2 hours from Cuba's capital, Havana. After having waited WAY too long for our luggage (2 hours) we got on a taxi to Viñales where we quickly found our 'casa particular.' A 'casa particular' is where most tourists stay when they visit Cuba because there aren't many hotels. You basically rent a room in a Cuban family home and get served breakfast as well (very similar to b&b.) Ours was called 'El Isleño' and was run by a lovely woman called Muñy who was very organised, and our room was lovely. It definitely wasn't anything incredible 'wow!' worthy but it was clean, tidy and big enough for my brother, mum and I. 

The first night we got there we went to explore the town a bit, had dinner in a local restaurant and took some pictures. It was so mind bending to see people riding horses to work and carrying fruit in horse drawn carriages while next to modern cars and TVs. Also,  there's no wifi in Cuba!! There are few spots, like the town square, but it's very expensive and 'watching paint dry' kind of slow. It was honestly like being stuck in the middle of two times, 1966 and 2017. The most incredible thing about this town though, was the colours. In the whole town I didn't see one plane white house, but saw every other colour you can imagine. 

The next morning (day2) we woke up, had some breakfast, and went for a quad bike tour of Viñales and the national park. I loovveeeddd the quad bikes because they actually let me drive one around the town and national park which would have never happened anywhere else. (I was pretty good until I kind of crashed into a small ditch and hurt my wrist, at which point mum took over.) On the way to the national park we stopped by this 'canopy tour' place where I did a series of zip wires, each one better than the last. It was the most incredible thing I've done in a while, the wires were almost 500m long and stretched over the national park and the scenery was so beautiful and I felt like I was fllyyyiiiinnng! 

We then got a tour of the tabaco fields, something which Cuba is well known for. A tourist guide showed us around and made a cigar right in front of us in just a few minutes, using only tabaco leaves and honey. He then gave us one to try and my brother became pretty hooked and bought a few 'to give as presents.

Later on in our tour we got shown how Cuban coffee is grown and offered to try traditional Cuban rum which the guide said 'is so delicious it should be in a museum.' (Meanwhile I was thinking 'what kind of museums do you go to?')

Next we visited The Valley of Silence where, although not as silent as the name might suggest, we found a delicious restaurant and had a good lunch with a view. Quad biking back down to our house was so fun, and you could see the look on other tourists' faces as they saw an underage girl driving on the streets and Cubans just dismissing it as the norm.

After a much much needed siesta, my fam and I went riding through the countryside with these 2 Italian women we met along the tour. I was lucky enough to get given the best, liveliest horse so I could gallop along ahead of everyone else. We all wore sombreros to hide from the burning sun and it was funny to see them all fly off when people went fast.  We also got to see more of the Tabaco fields and enjoy the sunset. 

Soon after the horse riding we promised we'd stay awake and have a nice dinner but our bodies gave way and all 3 of us were soon asleep again after an eventful day. 

And that was our short, but eventful stay in Viñales. The next day, we went to Havana. You can read all about that in a few days... xx

Hope you enjoyed this post! Have you ever been to Cuba, or would you like to go?
x  Sofia