October 25th. Joe and I took a sabbatical in 2016 and travelled around Central and South America. This is an extract from the journal kept while on the road. 

Today we got up to the most amazing breakfast at our casa in Viñales. The woman who prepared it gave us much more fruit than usual, and cooked scrambled eggs with an egg yolk cooked in a ring of pepper. It was delicious. She gave us lots of useful tips for the day, like for example it is fine to explore the area without a guide, and that we can organise walks ourselves. She gave us a few handy pointers from the beautiful hand painted map on the wall in the breakfast area.

After hunting down Sandra and Signe (our Danish friends we met in Playa Giron) in Viñales we headed out to Valle de Ancon – a really small village a valley over from Viñales. We parked the car some distance from the village and witnessed 10-20 vultures circling a bloody pile of intestines in a field.

As we arrived it was clear that it was not going to be simple, there were a handful of incredibly persistent guides telling us that we could not walk alone unsupervised with a selection of reasons why this was the case. They told us that it was a ‘Zona Militar’ (military area) that was out of bounds and that there was no way we’d be able to find the way alone.

Not believing a word they were saying and getting increasingly frustrated Joe asked an old lady carrying a plate of minced meat if it was okay to go walking in the area. She told us that it was completely fine and briskly ordered her husband to give us directions. An old man showed us a turning through what appeared to be the garden of a house and pointed us in the direction of a waterfall.

As we were entering the forest cover a man in a bright pink t-shirt ran up behind us asking if we had authorisation to enter the forest. Joe told him the old man said it was okay, and we continued our journey. Hiking unaccompanied is not easy in Viñales!

The path ascended steeply to a ridge where we spotted a number of wild pigs, beautiful orchids and finally a tiny green hummingbird. We followed the ridge down, got slightly lost and eventually stumbled upon an incredibly beautiful lookout spot over the valley.

As we were leaving we bumped into another tour guide who was again insistent that we should not be out there on our own… we ignored him, and not wanting to create a scene in front of his clients we were let off relatively easy.

The path descended into a valley of increasingly thick jungle where we spotted a long winding trail of leafcutter ants. The path got increasingly muddy and hard to follow until we reached a point where we had to cross a log bridge which led us to a beautiful waterfall. We spent some time paddling before heading back.

On the way back we reached what the hustlers had originally claimed was a military checkpoint. Unsurprisingly it was completely deserted now we weren’t in the market for a guided tour!

Relieved to see our car was still where we’d parked it, we drove back down the winding pothole-filled road to a small restaurant where we had an excellent lunch of fried chicken, rice, Cuban vegetables, and for first time in ages avocado and tomatoes.

At sunset, we all jumped in the car again and drove up to a scenic viewpoint with a great view of the view over Viñales. We sipped some cold drinks while watching the sun go down before heading back into Viñales for more drinks.

The evening progressed into Joe and I being dragged out to the salsa dancing club.  It was a fantastic atmosphere though, set in a smoky courtyard behind the local church and replete with a live band and burlesque dancers.  

Many strange Cuban/Non-Cuban couples filled the night, and it seemed that every person in the place was a character of sorts which led to great people watching.  The hawk-eyed local boys eager to teach some salsa or book you in for the first horse tour the next morning, the group of Swedish girls looking to avoid yet another dance, the awkward Western tourist men shuffling on the dancefloor, the out of town Cuban fisherman who dreams of moving to Paris, and the barman who kept the glasses of neat rum coming.  One of the interesting things of being in a small town like Viñales is that you quickly recognize and see many of the same faces, so despite just arriving there was a sort of homely feel to everything.