Day 191 - Washed out and smoked out

Viñales

All night we could hear rain bucketing down and it was still falling heavily when we went for breakfast around 9am. We were told that our walking tour of the tobacco and coffee farms had been cancelled, but we could still pay a visit to the tobacco farm as it was close to town. We asked our host again about our transport the next day, whether it was arranged, when we would be picked up, and what the cost would be, and were told it would be sorted today.

We were picked up by a small taxi (not a "classic" car this time), and were told that our guide would be the boyfriend of the host's daughter, who didn't speak English .... in fact he didn't speak much at all. We were dropped off a couple of kilometres out of town and the end of a very waterlogged driveway, which had a pretty constant stream of water flowing down and out onto the road. We followed our "guide" a fair way along a track clogged with water and a rich, thick red mud. There was no way a car could have gone up there, we had enough trouble walking.

We arrived wet and muddy at a shed where a few tobacco farmers were sitting, but they didn't seem to pleased to see us, it was apparent that they weren't expecting us (or anybody else). There was a bit of discussion between the boyfriend and the "boss" farmer, after which we were then taken into the drying shed. The farmer launched into his  spiel (in Spanish) on the tobacco growing and drying process, which he directed solely at M, K's existence was almost ignored, which is par the for the course in much of South and Central America - too bad K is the one that understands Spanish! At the end of the talk we were given the chance to puff on a cigar, dipped in honey to supposedly soften the harshness of the smoke. Even then one puff was more than enough. Then there was a pretty low key sales pitch for us to buy some cigars. In Australia only individually wrapped cigars can be brought in, and in very limited quantities, but these were straight from the farm, so we declined. After that it was back along the trail in the rain (the stream was practically a river by this stage). We were disappointed that we hadn't really got to see that much, can't do much about the weather though.

Back at the casa we spent some time cleaning our shoes, and asked again about our transport, still no info. Into town for lunch then, including some pina coladas, it was still raining so it looked like we wouldn't be doing much else today. At our lunch place they had a system where a bottle of rum is left on your table with your drink so you can add it as much as you like to your pina colada, we were very responsible of course - adding rum at least three more times as we took sips from our drink.

After lunch and some more time wandering around town in the rain we went back to our casa to finalise our transport details, but nothing had been arranged and there was just a vague indication that it would cost us 45CUC per person and that we might leave at 10am.  We decided at this point we'd take matters into our own hands. In town we found that a shared taxi was 35CUC each, but we opted for the 7am bus at 32CUC for the 7 hour trip. Sure it left early and wasn't door to door, but we knew that the bus would be much more comfortable than the shared taxi we had taken to get to Viñales. While we were in the queue the lady from the casa found us and finally gave us the taxi info, but at her price of 40CUC it just wasn't worth it, we didn't see any point in giving the casa any more money than we had to, as it was obvious they were skimming off the top on the taxi fares.