Bikepacking Cuba: To Vinales

Everything is sticky.

I’m sticking to my sleeping pad, sticking to my quilt, sticking to myself. A breeze blows through every couple of hours and feels amazing for the few seconds that it lasts. The cloud cover isn’t helping anything. I would almost welcome a little rain to cool things down, but I can’t fathom having to put the rain fly on and eliminate the tiny bit of breeze we are getting. I toss and turn. Sleep comes in short, fitful doses.

And then the morning comes too soon.

I awake to the sound of the Diggers arranging their stuff. The sky has a faint morning glow to it and the temperature has finally dropped a couple of degrees. The rain that I had wished for seems immanent. Soon we are all stirring. I eat the Ramen noodles I set out to soak the night before. We all went to bed without anything warm to eat, in a random field on Christmas Eve. Now everyone is hankering to get the hell out of here. The mosquitoes are encouraging that sentiment.

Not only had we gone to bed without much of a dinner, but we also ended the day with little water. This became our priority along with coffee. A quick pedal gets us into the next town, San Diego de los Banos. There is a gas station that seems like it is the center of the town as there is a large crowd gathered out front waiting. For what we are not sure, but they are waiting. The sign on the door says they open at 8. It’s about 8:30. We walk in and the female attendant immediately says they are not open yet. And no, she cannot sell us anything, not even water.

Welp…. John and I walk back out and find Shalena talking to an old man. Or more an old man was desperately trying to talk to Shalena. There is a small bus stop type store in the corner of the gas station lot that is open. We walk over and get some cookies, crackers, chips, but they also do not have water. Shalena has not been able to shake her newly found friend and he hears that we need water. He just happens to live right next door and says we can fill up from his sink. A lady, who we assume is his partner, comes out and helps us fill up. We thank her and pass her a few pesos for her effort. She is hesitant until I tell her it’s our way of saying thank you. She takes the money and is super grateful for it.

Having secured water, we now need to filter it. We get back on the bikes and head further into town in search of a filtering spot and to see if we can procure some coffee.

We find a small plaza that is quiet and clean. It’s perfect. John and I start to filter water and the ladies head out to see if they can find coffee. As we are doing our thing, a guy walks up and starts chatting us up. He says he is a guide and that his dad has a cigar factory that offers free tours just around the corner. We thank him and he heads off. Mama Bear and Shalena return with bad news, no coffee. About this time, our guy comes back. We are just about done and he is hard selling his factory tour. He clinches our attention with promises of coffee.

The factory is half a block away and is his house. We arrive to a large family doing morning things and are quickly hurried to the back of the house to the “factory.” This is a room with a long table on it, a few tools and a stool. The old man is lively, excited to show us his craft and begins rolling a cigar while teaching us the intricacies of the cigar craft and industry in Cuba. He’s 83 and has the hard, calloused skin to prove that he has been doing this for most of his life.

The making of one cigar, plus explanation and the following Q&A takes about 20 minutes. It has not included coffee. The “tour” terminates with a very hard sell of a bundle of cigars. No, we can’t just buy the one he made. They only sell the bundles and those are $80. I don’t smoke and don’t know many folks that do. Cigars were not on my list for souvenirs. I politely decline. John gets his arm twisted all the harder and caves, purchasing the bundle and gets the one he just made “free.”

We exit the factory back room of the house and are seated at a table with 3 chairs. There are 4 mugs and the trappings of coffee. We sit down and then are left alone. After some awkward silence and glancing around, we realize there is no coffee in any of the pots in the room and no one seems to be around. Realizing that the coffee was bull shit and our guy just wanted to sell some cigars, we make our exit. The bikes are out front and as we begin to gather our things, the guide shows up once more with one mug of coffee for us to share. Not sure where he got it as he was coming back up the street as we exited. Having made good on his promise, we all take a few sips and bid him farewell.

Or so we thought.

The route followed pavement out of town and within 10-15 minutes we hear a scooter coming up behind us with yells to stop. Apparently, John had committed the crime of passing a $20 bill with a tear in it. This, we are told is not accepted in Cuba and the money is worthless. With all the diplomacy he can muster, John finds another bill and exchanges it with our guy. He and his scooter taxi driver flip around and we never see them again.

Our route continues on pavement and leads us to the above castle looking thing that serves as the entrance to the National Park of Güira. The Ruta Mala has us using a dirt road around the entrance which if we would have followed would have saved us the 10 pesos each to enter which seemed a bit ridiculous to us. We pay the attendant and head into the park.

The way is forested with big lush trees. The pavement is smooth as we begin to climb and climb and climb. It is cloudy and as we gain elevation, we find ourselves riding through the clouds. The overcast skies are nice as it isn’t super hot, but it is humid and we are occasionally spritzed. The combination of which leaves us all soaking wet.

The road twists and turns climbing higher and higher into the mountains. The forest begins to give way and huge rock formations loam around us. Despite the rocky start to the day, we are all in high spirits enjoying the beautiful terrain.

Our route rolls us up to an intersection and there is a small store at the junction. It’s still fairly early but we haven’t had much to eat. We stop for snacks and beers cause why not? This quickly turns into food and snacks and food and beer and ends up being a meal. Feeling fat and happy, we pay and leave a nice tip before proceeding.

The junction, much like the day prior, is where we leave pavement and begin following a dirt road. This dirt road starts out fine. Then fine turns to a little overgrown. This leads us into super overgrown with plants that want to kill you but still ridable. Which in turn leads us to pushing our bikes through the jungle of stabby plants, dragging them over streams that have flooded washing out the road and hours of feeling like we are simply wandering around in the jungle with no end in sight.

As we exited this particular tunnel that served as our road, the Diggers happily saluted the route in the only appropriate way.

Yes, there is a trail in there somewhere or at least that where we emerged.

Vinales is so close we can taste the weak beer. The route drops us down out of the mountains and onto a sandy dirt road just as the rain starts falling. It’s about 6 miles on the map. We are all a bit too trashed to be feel like we are almost done for the day. It’s been another fist fight with the jungle and we don’t feel like we are the ones winning.

With our heads down and our rain jackets on, we tick off the last miles into town.

Vinales has been described as the Yosemite of Cuba. It’s a big valley with big rock outcroppings all around and it has become the adventure tourist spot of the island. As such, the road into town quickly fades into a main street lined with restaurants, casas particulares and shops. We can see Europeans and other foreigners wandering around and we hear many different languages.

Our impromptu “lunch” before the fist fight was all we had to eat for the day. Hence our first priority was beer. We found a spot that looked nice and ordered some drinks and a little bit of food. The rain stops and feeling satiated for the moment, we head out to find a place to stay.

Casas Particulares use a particular symbol to denote that they have been authorized to house foreigners. The street is lined with them. We check a few. The 3rd or 4th happens to be in a botanical garden leaving space for our big bikes and gear. It’s clean, the lady is nice and we’re tired. We roll in and begin to yard sale while her son is giving a tour to other tourists of the garden. She is concerned about all the mud we are bringing in for the spores and what not and demands we give her our shoes. She proceeds to scrub them all clean for us.

A kind of hot shower, a somewhat clean pair of clothes and some money in our pockets and we head back out on the town to find food. John had seen a rooftop restaurant on the way in and we headed there. It’s got a nice view of the valley. The drinks are good as is the food. Being once again, fat and happy, we head out to find another spot. Drinks are in order after the two days we’ve had and after all, it is Christmas.

The day ends in deep contrast to the day prior. We are well fed, showered and have found plenty to drink. Back at the house, we sit in the botanical garden, snag a few more beers out of the stocked fridge there and toast to the day.

Embrace Chaos. Seek Discomfort.