Hello From Cuba (3) - Hiking Vinales And Exploring Nature

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Hotel Havana Libre, Tuesday, April 5, 2005, 6:54 pm

On Sunday it was gorgeous. The cold front had finally passed through, the rain was gone and we had a beautiful warm sunny day without any humidity.

My hostess is also a guide for the National Park System and Vinales is a nationally protected natural habitat. She had a tour planned through a side valley of Vinales (Valle del Ancon) with 3 participants, an older couple from Germany and me.

The tour was fabulous, we got picked up by a local in a taxi and went about 20 minutes outside of town and got dropped off at a local primary school, which had several communist slogans painted on the outside. Political graffiti, paintings and message boards are extremely common in Cuba. Although there is no western style advertising, there are plenty of political slogans (a collection of a few of which I will summarize at a later point).

This is a very strange experience when you come from a Western capitalist country like Canada, and then you see all these political slogans about Communism and defending the Revolution. Truly fascinating indeed, a completely different world.

On our 3 hour trip we walked through local fields, were told about local wildlife, special birds (the Cuban Tocororo, Turkey vultures and other birds. We also heard about local farming which still takes place with human labour, manual ploughs and oxen. We were introduced to crops such as Malanga (pureed and given to babies), Yucca, various types of sweet potatoes, corn and yams.

One of the highlights was a 20 minute walk through a limestone cave through one of the Mogote hills. We saw some interesting stone formations and even strange pale plants growing inside the pitch-dark cave. Our guide had illuminated the cave with a strong flashlight for the 4 of us and it was a pretty easy walk with no cave-dwelling animals in sight, only one political slogan spray-painted in the cave (apparently this was a hideout for the revolutionary army at some point..).

After exiting the cave, we ended up in an uninhabited small valley completely surrounded by mountains and we ran into a local farmer of 60 years, whose leathery face and slim body gave him the appearance of an 80 year old man, evidence of many decades of sun and hard work.

He had a flock of turkeys (with 61 young chicks), a dog and some fields of corn and beans. And he generally spends most of his days working manually in this little valley, completely isolated, sometimes staying overnight in a single hut made from the wood and leaves of the royal palm tree, Cuba?s national tree. No radio, no TV, no sanitation, no kitchen, just a wooden bed with a blanket in a hut with an earthen floor. Again a reminder of how different life can be in this country....

About the Author: Susanne Pacher is the publisher of a website called Travel and Transitions (http://www.travelandtransitions.com). Find unconventional travel information, cross-cultural experiences, interviews with travellers and other inspiring people. Submit your own travel stories & win an exciting Amazon River cruise! "Life is a Journey - Explore New Horizons?

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