After Christmas, we left our kids in California with my parents (thank you!!). They got to play with their cousins, and Lucas’ family while we went on a 5 day trip.
Havana
Wednesday, Dec 27 we took a red-eye flight from SMF (leaving at midnight) > MIA > HAV landed at 11 am Havana time. I took a melatonin right before we boarded so I was asleep before we took off. Lucas didn’t go to sleep as fast but luckily we both slept as much as we could on the 5 hour flight to Miami.
At the airport we exchanged US dollars for Cuban Pesos which is what I read on some travel blogs we were supposed to do before leaving the airport. We were picked up by local taxi (pre-arranged by our Airbnb host) who told us we were crazy for exchanging money at the airport because the rate there is $1 USD = 150 Cuban Pesos and the exchange rate elsewhere is $1 = 250. I wish I would have known! We essentially lost the equivalent of $100 USD. Lesson learned. When we got to the Airbnb we laid down for 45 min because we were super tired but we didn’t want to waste too much of our daylight. In Dec the sun sets around 6 pm in Havana.
We walked to the San Jose Artisan Market (15 minute) where we walked through countless tiny shops and bought hats, a painting, and a wood carved dancing couple. Stopped for pizza near the main square on our walk back because we were hungry for dinner even though it was only 4 pm. After pizza we walked to the shops on Obisbo St. where it was very crowded so we turned around and went to the chocolate shop.
At the chocolate shop we got a small chocolate bar shaped like a bear and paid for it. Then we got “cold drinking chocolate” but we were confused about the prices so we thought we had paid for everything and we were politely stopped on our way out because it turned out we didn’t pay for the drinks 🙃
Thursday, Dec 28
We had pre-arranged breakfast with our airbnb host so our first morning some delicious food showed up to our place at 9 am. It felt like magic. The butter in Cuba is much more flavorful than the US butter we are used to. They provided bread, butter, cheese, eggs, and avocado for us to assemble breakfast sandwiches. Super yummy.
We googled the famous restaurant shown in the artwork we bought and it was only an 8 min walk away so we walked to it and took a photo of the artwork in the location.
By the time we walked back it was perfect timing to catch the taxi that was scheduled to drive us 3 hours to Viñales.
Viñales
None of the taxis we rode in had seat belts. For our ride to Viñales we started out without seatbelts but it was raining very hard so we dug the seatbelts out from between the seats and buckled up just in case. We eventually got to the other side of the storm and the weather was clear before we arrived.
We were dropped off at our Airbnb at 1:35 and had just enough time to set down our stuff, meet the host, and walk to the town square where we were scheduled to meet our horse back riding tour guide at 2.
From 2-6:30 pm we rode horses through the valley to a Tobacco farm where we learned how the crop is grown, harvested, and turned into cigars. The most interesting things we learned is 1. The stem of the leaf has 90% of the nicotine so the farm removes it so the cigars are less addictive. And 2. The government requires that the farm sells 90% of the farm’s crops to them (the gov). And they don’t allow the farms to sell their own cigars anywhere but their farms. The gov combines tobacco from all the different farms, makes cigars, and manages the sale of all Cuban cigars inside and outside of Cuba. All of the farms also harvest honey from bees in the mountains. It is made by a certain kind of bee and is used as medicine and food. It’s delicious so I bought some.
After visiting the farm we got back on the horses and rode to the base of a magote where we hiked up to see an incredible view of the valley. We got to see the beginning of the sunset from up high and enjoyed the rest on the horse ride home.
While hiking up, our guide moved a tree branch hanging over the trail because he didn’t want it to fall on anyone and when he moved it the branch fell on my head. My head and shoulder hurt from where the tree branch landed but much more painful than that was the several bug bits I got from whatever bug that fell off the branch and down the back of my jacket. It stung SO bad. Our guide felt really bad. It wasn’t great during the moment but now hopefully it’s a good story.
The horse tour was very fun but we left with sore groins because we are not used to bouncing around on saddles for hours. 😂 We got back by 6:30 pm and had a delicious dinner waiting for us that was prepared by our Airbnb host. Everything he provided was delicious. The black beans were so good I asked for the recipe! We invited him to eat with us and we got to learn a lot about him and life in Cuba.
We showered and went to bed early. The bed was small and uncomfortable so we felt like we were back to our newly married days when we were sleeping on a 15+ year old full mattress and thought it was a queen 😂 They are noticeably different when you lay 2 people on them.
Friday, December 29
Despite us being exhausted, we woke up at 5 am for a sunrise hike tour. We met our guide at the tour square, rode a taxi to the national park, hiked in the dark for 45 minutes or so, and watched the sun rise from high up on a magote where we could see the whole Viñales valley. We stopped half way up at a house for coffee or mango juice and after the sunrise we stopped at that house again for a tutorial on how they harvest and make Cuban coffee. Neither of us were interested in the coffee but the info was interesting. I had no idea coffee beans were inside a red pod on a plant before they are taken apart and roasted to become coffee beans.
After the farm tour we hiked back down the mountain and rode the taxi back to the main part of town. Our Airbnb host again had a delicious email waiting for us. Cuban pancakes with mango sauce and omelets! I wrote down his instructions for making the mango sauce and I’m going to try it at home.
We took a nap, packed our bags, and got a scheduled taxi to pick us up and drive us to Soroa.
This is a plant our guide showed us on the hike back down the trail. The leaves close up when you touch them!
Soroa
We checked into our final Airbnb which was a cabin in a dreamy garden.
We had a little bit of time before dinner so we walked up the street from the cabin and explored the area.
We passed a “campo” that we learned is a free place for Cubans to vacation. It looks like it was amazing when it was originally built but the amenities haven’t been maintained. Dozens of small cabin type houses for people to stay in near a great hiking region.
It was entertaining to us that the locals were wearing jackets, some actual puffy jackets, since the temperature was low 70s.
Dinner provided by the Airbnb host blew us away. Soup, rice, perfectly seasoned pork, fresh avocados, star fruit juice, and home made creamy lemon ice cream. The Airbnb host had a family chef named Juana and her everything she made was delicious. All of the ingredients were either from the garden on the property or from a neighbor.
We ended the night with the warmest shower yet in Cuba and listening to downloaded podcast episodes while we looked through our trip photos because we had no wifi to watch SNL clips on YouTube like we do at home.
Saturday, December 30
This was the only day we didn’t have a plan for the day. We slept in because we ended up not sleeping well during the night so we stayed in bed until our 9 am breakfast. Again Juana made a delicious meal. Every meal we had in Cuba included a different kind of fruit juice. We tried juice made from fresh star fruit, mango, a special kind of orange, guava, ??, ??
After breakfast we walked 25 minutes down the road to the orchid gardens and explored the area for a while. They had a cute gift shop there and I bought more souvenirs than I should have. Dominoes, a music stick for my mom, classic car, beautiful hanging bird, all made out of wood.
Luckily the gardens had a covered patio area with chairs because it rained a lot. We brought cards so we played gin while we waited for the rain to pass. The view from the garden down the valley was covered in clouds for most of our wandering but it looked incredible when the clouds cleared.
Further up the hill there was a castle and a view we wanted to see but we weren’t sure how to get there. We saw a staircase and a locked gate so we jumped the fence to see if it was a path to the castle. It wasn’t 😂 so we hoped back over the fence and asked someone to confirm if the next best path (according to our guesses) was an option to get to the castle. That turned out to work so we walked up to the top. The castle was under renovation construction so it wasn’t exciting to see but they had a cafe / swimming pool that overlooked the valley and it was beautiful. We just had to wait a bit for the clouds to clear again.
We ordered bread and butter which turned out to be bread and chipotle sauce and a cheese sandwich. It was so peaceful to sit and play dominoes (our new game) and watch the clouds go by. We didn’t actually know how to play dominoes so we made up a few versions.
We thought we had left the cafe at the perfect time but sure enough it started to rain pretty hard right as we started our 45 minute walk down the mountain and back to the Airbnb. It was a chilly day, especially once our thin wind breaker jackets were soaked. It felt amazing to jump in a hot shower when we got back home.
We laid down and relaxed for a bit before our 5 pm dinner. Yet another delicious meal. This time we stayed on the porch (where meals were served) after dinner and played a few rounds of gin and made up dominoes. It rained again so we went inside and I sorted photos while Lucas read, “Let Your Life Speak” and read impactful passages to me.
After the first night was a struggle using the bug net around the bed we opted to sleep without it. The temperature had dropped significantly so we were very cold.
Sunday, December 31
We asked the host for WiFi access (hot spot off her phone) so we could text my mom and check on the kids and Google the real rules to dominoes. Verizon’s website says they have roaming service in Cuba but we were unsuccessful in using it. We had a slow morning at the cabin, packed up our backpacks, ate breakfast, then played dominoes (the real way) while we waited for a taxi to take us to the airport.
We got to the airport early and it turned out to be really smooth getting in and settled so we had a lot of time to wait and there was no food in the airport. Luckily we had brought protein bars with us for the trip but by the time we got to the airport we only had 1 left. So we didn’t eat much for about 6 hours (taxi to the airport, waiting for flight, length of first flight) until we got to the Miami airport where there were tons of food options.
Our Miami > Sacramento flight was delayed a bit so we arrived close to 11:30 pm. One perk to this timing was we were driving through Sacramento at midnight when a lot of people were setting off new years fireworks that we could see from the freeway. We got back to my parents’ house, packed up all of our and the kids’ suitcases and went to sleep around 1:30 am. Then we woke up with Tenny at 5:30 am and ate breakfast and went back to the SMF airport with the kids to fly back to Portland. Lots of travel in 24 hours but it was worth it.