La Palma, Cuba

(I took this photo from the side of the road on the way to Viñales. The views were amazing)



Day 9 in Cuba

We had to renew the car rental that day and figured we would go early and get a good start on driving to Viñales. We get to the rental car place and there are 5 guys sitting around not doing much of anything. Such is life in Cuba. People are employed by the government even if they have no primary functions or responsibilities. Rental cars were impossible to find this time of year. I got lucky into getting the week long rental I had and my travel agent said that was only due to a cancellation. The guy I rented it from told me no problem getting it renewed on December 27th. I trusted him.

So we are in the office and these clowns said no way we can extend it. I say to get the main guy on the phone. He says he needs to talk to his manager then says it’s impossible. I refuse to take no for an answer. In the meantime we are calling all these other agencies. There is not even one car available to rent in all of Havana. I finally get him back on the phone and now he is saying it’s possible but to come back at 2 PM. This shot our plans as we wanted to leave early. We decided to go to Chinatown and eat. There really is no real Chinatown. It’s all of 3 blocks or so and there aren’t any Asians there. We only saw one guy that was the manager of the restaurant. It’s not real Chinese food but kind of a hodgepodge of ingredients. We all got the same thing and the order was huge.

We get back to the car rental agency and now it’s possible. Yeah! We extend it and add Stu’s name to the contract. Now, all three names were on the car contract. We blow out of there and head to Viñales. We are on the highway and Stu and I want to take the backroads as the view from the highway is not that great. We drove through Bahia Honda – La Palma – Vinales. Stu missed his calling. He could have been an Indy race car driver. The problem is that these roads weren’t NOT made for racecar drivers. They are windy and the roads in certain spots are in very poor condition. A few times we were airborne and one time we lost some tread on the tires. I think TAD and I were kind of wondering to ourselves if we were going to get into an accident. I was sitting in the front seat and decided to put on my seat belt.

The views were BREATHTAKING and amazing. I wanted to take pictures and so did Stu but TAD was very nervous about it getting dark. I had never seen him get nervous. I kept saying we’d be fine, no worries. Stu didn’t seem to be too worried either but that was part of the reason he was driving so fast. We didn’t want to be on this crappy road when it got dark. There are absolutely no lights on the road and the roads are windy. Also, if your car breaks down there is no AAA. I would highly recommend driving along this route. It was amazing some of the things we saw. There were mountains in the background nestled with palm trees and sugar cane fields. Certain parts of the drive approaching Bahia Honda there were great views of the bay.

We made it to Viñales and it’s a very very small town. We had to drive around looking for enough rooms for 3 people. We all wanted our own rooms. We finally managed to find 3 places. I kept asking people about the party scene and they kept saying there were places to go. Let me tell you something…. There is NO party scene in Viñales. We showered then met at the only restaurant in town. It was decent. Then we began exploring. The town like most towns in Cuba had a Casa de la Musica. We went and it was filled with teenagers. We left and went to two bars that were packed with tourists but no locals. We then went to the Caves where they had a bar but it also was dead. We got one drink then left. I asked a few guys there were all the action was and they told me Café “Arta”.

Turns out it was Café Artex and that was the horrible bar that we already went to filled with tourists. We were in disbelief. We kept walking around the main stretch but there were only very young kids out. It was like an Alfred Hitchcock movie where all the adults in town were eliminated. I only saw young kids. We were all in disbelief. Stu and I wanted to party. There was ZERO action in this town and we decided to leave the next day.