Cubanacan Hotel y Villas Marina Hemingway Vinales

... the large puddle that moments before we had all walked through. Aw, how cute.<br><br>The last night in Viñales we spent at the casa, drinking with our hosts. They kept telling us off over and over again for not eating dinner at the casa. It was a bit annoying actually. It´s a strange situation because you are staying in someone´s house so you feel like a guest who is obliged to do the hard yards like eat together, clean up etc. But we were paying heaps for ...

... in die ARTex Bar am zentralen Platz neben der Kirche im Ort, wo jeden Tag unter freiem Himmel live Musik gemacht wird. Und Musikmachen, das koennen die Kubaner! Und dazu tanzen auch. Schon dabei zuzuschauen, wie sie Salsa tanzen, ist purer Genuss. Wir umgehen ausnahmsweise mal das Amigo-Prinzip und fragen einen der Taenzer direkt, bei wem man denn hier Salsa lernen koennte. 2 Saetze spaeter ist er unser neuer Tanzlehrer. Und so verbringen wir die naechsten Tage ...

... for about 4 hours stopping along the way for a coconut mixed with rum (what else?), grapefruit and honey before stopping off for a coffee at another shack in the countryside. Fortunately the rum came after the caves he brought me into. I was not expecting caves but the trek included quite a few crossings over water and other obstacles. The "bridges" required all of my attention not to lose my balance. Made from bamboo, they were a challenge and combined with ...

... in Inglis. The walk was long and hot, but thanks to me wearing my shirt on my head it made it easier. After walking through the country for an hour and a half we arrived at Dos Hermanas. The valley is in the middle of all the pillars, rising hundreds of metres up, which echo with symphany when I ´cooeeed´. Dos Hermanas is a section of a pillar which is covered in paint, 80m up at 120m wide illistrating evolution between Crustations, Dinosours ...

Woke up in the sunshine, had a good breakfast chatting with my host lady, and off for a day out. I walked around town, visiting the lovely little church, and putting my nose everywhere I could, as usual. I did not see the people I had met teh night before, as they were all lazily sleeping, so I rented a bike and headed out. Houses and fields along the road, animals, old cars and trucks, little shacks selling fresh fruits at local prices, a funerary procession... The landscape was made of ...

... we did as our great guide Omar put us through it, 5hrs of hiking and a cool cave!! Was a great treck and walked through the mountains and plains! Also got good local tips on cures from the various plants and stuff, and oscar rolled a fresh cigar while explaining the whole process of storage n ****

(Originally published at http://www.troysgonewalkabout.com)<br>< br>We started the day at a car rental office in the grand Hotel Sevilla on the Prado, one of Havana&#8217;s most graceful boulevards, to get our wheels. I couldn&#8217;t help but have visions of us cruising around the country in a sleek 1950&#8217;s Chevrolet convertible, with sunglasses on, the wind through our hair and generally just looking too cool for school. <br> <br>Alas, we got exactly ...

... set out for a three-hour hike around the sudden, jagged rocks and hills that dot the green landscape of this farming area. The mogotes vary in size from five-foot obelisks that jut druid-like from fresh-plowed fields, to the massive hills and ridged rock faces that burst into your view in every direction. It's impossible to take a bad picture in this UNESCO World Heritage Site -- when there's sun like this morning ...

All Cubanos we had talked to insisted we go to Viñales because it's so beautiful. If you live in regular Cuba, all screaming tropical vegetation, flat fields of sugar cane and tobacco and mood altering heat, Viñales must seem like paradise on earth. Cool, dark, green conifers grow near invitingly dank caves in the hillsides; massive limestone pincushions, called mogotes, erupt from the valley floors - Viñales is becoming an international climbing Mecca. We arrived exhausted, grumpy ...

... officers. It was highly illegal for them to be giving us a ride! The scenery at Viñales was amazing; limestone "mogotes" jutting out of the countryside. The village itself was quite small, but I managed to secure a pretty cool casa none the less. My host Juan was a real character! Kind of a town figure I guess. He loved to stand on the corner and just watch the day go by! In fact, that's what pretty much everyone did in this ...