Cuba

Ahh man Cuba!

That place leaves a mark. A very special kind of mark.
Sort of like your first scar or your first tatoo i'm guessing.
Both thrilling and enticing, painful and vibrant yet everlasting and historical.  

And if you've ever time traveled my friend, then you'd know what i mean.
You'd know what it's like.
For that was no plane that we'd just landed on. More like an old fashioned time machine with some fancy dashboards and a massive wingspan.

Yeah you'd know what it's like.
That gentle disorientation. The slight dizziness. The stillness of time.
The slow moving feet. The sweaty heat. The ancient warmth of tropical climates.
Those velvet spanish sounds. This was no 21st century.

I felt it soon as the air hit me. That thick salty sea air.
Wafting with diesel and the sound of crushing waves.

Because yes Havana is a seaside town. Just a few hours south of Vice City...

Havana, Cuba

... and just a couple decades behind. Fastened with a rustic smells of leather and drying paint. Showered in hard rhum, mint mojitos  and traffic fueled cigar smoke. Ahh man, this is what a midnight meal in Havana looks like :

Shrimp and lobster skewers

Ahh Havana, something else I tell ya!

Something else and incidentally the starting point to our little 8 day road trip around the island.

Heading west out of the city we gunned it to Pinar del Rio, capital of the province of the same name, industrial center for the tobacco plantations nearby and home of the number one baseball team on the island.

Nothing much to see in the town except for a bad lunch so we hooked north towards Viñales (the heart on the map), the main village at the heart of tobacco valley.

We hoped to find a road that could take us to a beach on the nearby west coast. We drove through the valley and man what a sight !  We knew we'd have to come back but the ocean was calling that day my friends. Hence I put my foot down on the gas.

That's correct.

I was driving again.

Yep. Without anyone's permission and I was fucking loving every minute of it.

Viñales Valley. Speeding through. What's not to love?!

Sophie was copilot and, guidebook in hand, was reading up on a some supposedly awesome beach nearby that sounded heavenly. Problem was we were roughly 800 km west of where she thought she was taking us and I had no idea yet.

And so she lead. And I drove along. Following her directions. Left. Then right. Then straight. Then stop. Wait. No. Uhm. Shit. Ok. Lost.

Lost. As in foliage and nothingness all around.

Lost and completely off course. The sun was going down and we were going to be mosquitoe meat any minute. With instinct our only source of guidance now, we pushed west hard and fast across dirt paths for the better part of an hour. It got stressful and shaky and then suddenly we burst out onto a main road. Never in my life was I as happy to see asphalt.

Happily I drove on !

The road lead south along the coast. A few miles later we noticed a small toll booth with a sign. It was for a smaller road leading west straight to the coast. I mumbled some spanish to the guard who then responded "Beach that way amigo... closing... sleeping no possible though." I said we would just be looking around and he let us through. Five minutes later we saw a few huts and so I parked the car got out and went to check it out.

Made it. Just in time for mosquito inferno.

This would have to do for we had nowhere else to go and most everyone we'd met had told us not to drive at night. And thus it was perfect. We'd sleep on the beach and die of mosquito bites.

Cayo Jutia (star #2 on map)

 Quite à nice beach though.

Cayo Jutia

Next morning we'd wake up, have a swim and maybe make friends with the local Cubans.

Rhum in the Gulf

And by maybe, I mean maybe we'd start sipping rum from the bottle at 9 am on a overly crowded 'pedalo' in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico. Just maybe.

Of course things went down great. Once tipsy, we chilled by the beach all day and then headed back to Viñales and its magical Tobacco Valley with our new friends. The plan was to hang out in the village for a bit and  check out the local plantations, take in the views and hopefully live to tell about it to those still stuck in the present.

Campesino working the hard way

Thus the next day we would head out on horse-back to the nearby lake and have a swim.

Sophie et Caramelo

The lake with no name

Luis et Fenando zappent outrageusement.
Ils le savent et ils ne sont pas content.

After our swim, we would then head back up in the hills to meet with Jose, their cousin.

Jose's shack on the campo

With Jose we would then smoke some freshly rolled cigars and drink some well deserved honey mojitos. We would end up staying over 4 hours in that hut. Smoking, drinking and talking the best mojitos, cigarillos and spanish ever conceived.

Here's how Jose made the first real cuban I ever smoked:

I never smoked anything so sweet my whole life. Everything about it was magical, earthly and pleasant. I'd smoked cigars before this and always wondered what the hype was all about. Man I can't tell ya. You just have to go and try these babies for yourself. These were as fresh as can be. Barely 9 months old. The youngest they come from what I understand. 3 months to grow the leaves. 3 months to dry the leaves and then 3 months of storage & fermentation.  It just doesn't get any better than that. The best part about it was the honey glue. Gave the smoke a caramel flavor that was so good I wanted to break up the cigar, grab a fork and start swallowing pieces! Right. Getting carried away now so moving on.

After Viñales, we had to come back the way we came all the way back up through Havana and then east and south towards the Bay of Pigs (#3 on the map) and then Trinidad (#4).

The Bay of Pigs...

...should be called the Bay of Crabs.
We had to stop for these little fellas every two minutes. 

Calleta Buena, Playa Giron (my 1st diving session)

Trinidad biggest bad ass band.
They call themselves The Beatles.
(not)

Trinidad

Once in Trinidad we explored the countryside, rode some more horses, made and drank some sugar cane juice,  chilled in the jungle, swam in waterfalls and basically just ate, smoked and drank to our heart's content. 

Horseback riding, Trinidad countryside

This is way harder than it looks.
I mean it is a brutal fuckin workout. 

Definitely worth the effort. Cane juice with lemon. 

Rambo 3

Paradisio, Trinidad jungle

Do I look like am zapping ?

Supplies for the road. From Viñales to Trinidad

Best damn avocado salad I've ever had, Trinidad

Things do end you know and just as we began the 300 km trip back to Havana from Trinidad. Our transmission broke. Our piece of shit chinese car had failed us and we were stranded. With only 48hours to go before our flight back. Luckily some mechanics from the same car rental company as our were the first car to show up. I mean seriously. This place man! Something else I tell ya. 

The clutch was fucked and they couldn't do anything about it but somehow they manage to get the car in gear and keep it there long enough to make the 70km drive to the nearest city, Cienfuegos where they drop us off at the agency. 

 I'm able to pull some fluent spanish out of my ass, talk to the rental company guy and get him to send us another vehicle pronto! Within less than 2 hours we were off again within less than 4 hours... 

We were back in Havana...

Havana, Cuba (looking east from the tallest building in town)

For one last night... 

La Bodeguita Del Medio, Hemingway's favorite bar in Havana

One last dip... 

Hotel Nacional de Cuba

One last Cuba Libre. 

And that's how we ended it. 

Because that's the only way to end it with this island. 

The only way off. 

The only way out of that time capsule and back to the now. 

With a solid drink. 

Zero