VINALES
Vinales is a small town. One main street with the shops, bars and restaurants.
But Vinales is about the countryside. The Mogote hills, steep sided hills left like Ayres Rock islands in the valley.
And Vinales is about tobacco farming - the best tobacco, the best cigars in the world come from here (supposedly, i'm no expert).
The soil is a ruddy red brown and clings to you.
The Mural Prehistorica, commissioned by Castro, is a juvenile, tawdy scar on the landscape.
Hummingbirds flit amongst the carefully selected plants and flowers in the casa gardens.
Lizards scurry around, inflating their red throat pouches.
Still can't feel my foot!
THOUGHTS
Every other backpacking tourist i met said the same thing - we want to see it before the Americans come and ruin it.
And that's the fear, the fear of the unknown, of how the country will change. The fear for us as tourists anyway - Most Cubans are desperate for the end of the embargo, for the influx of US tourist dollars.
Which is fair enough, i just hope transition is carefully managed, because allowing foreign corporations in would be the quickest way to kill the charm of the place and the people.
Discussions roamed around how the US has FINALLY got its tactics right in trying to destablise Cuba - not by restrictions - as its a commonly held view that the embargo has helped the Castros no end in keeping control - but by undermining the wobbling social state with a bombardment of flashy goods.
Cuba has fallen many years behind the developed world in terms of technology and fashions, but the people there have visibility of these things and naturally want them.
Ultimately after the Castros are gone, there will be enough greed that capitalism is inevitable, and the poor will suffer.
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