Tuesday 11 January 2012
 |
| Santo Tomas Cave |
Five of us, Ray and I, Nina, and Steve and Brenda Thomson, a couple from Kelowna, BC we had met at Hostal Peregrino, and who had just arrived in Viñales last night, had hired “El Popo” to drive to the cave on Monday morning. El Popo told us the car is a family heirloom. It originally belonged to his grandfather, was passed to an uncle, then to El Popo and eventually will be passed on to the El Popo’s daughter when she is old enough to drive.
We took off, Steve squeezed his 6’ 4” frame into the front beside Brenda and El Popo and the rest of us took the back seat. We soon found out there were no seat belts, the windows did not roll up or down and the handles to open the car doors did not all work. The engine worked well, even if it did labour up the hills. El Popo told us he got 5 km to the litre. At $1 CUC per litre, it costs a lot to drive. Ray predicted that if the embargo on imported cars was ever lifted, Cubans could make a big profit buying new model cars and selling their Classic cars. The problem is that there are hardly any original parts on the Cuban Classics. Whenever anything broke down on the car, it was replaced with whatever was available, a Lada or Ford engine, a part from a wrecked vehicle or even a home built part. I bet they would still find buyers anxious for a bit of nostalgia.
The cave, which has over 46 km of galleries, is in a park about 15 km from town. There are usually two guides leading tourists through the caves but one was sick today. We were asked to wait until the remaining guide returned with the first group of the day. We spent the time looking into the government store shared with the ticket office. Everything on offer was arranged on high selves behind the clerks who stood at a counter waiting for customers. Prices were hand written on coloured paper hanging below the applicable article. This was a Cuban department store as it sold everything from mattresses to household goods, used clothing, batteries and even fresh eggs. The title was a little over generous as the shelves were only half full of goods for sale.
Our guide, the genial Mike, arrived, issued each of us a red helmet and escorted about 12 of us to the path leading up to the first cave open to tourists. We had to scramble up 100 M through the woods to reach the entrance. Mike had told us it took 15 minutes to reach the entrance and another one hour to walk through the seven levels we would see; that is unless were Japanese tourists who took four hours taking photos. We took longer than an hour but less than the Japanese. I guess we were not quite as photo happy. Mile pointed out each caves best points and entertained us with corny but fun cave jokes. It was a huge complex, with many openings to the forest. Mike told us the aboriginal people had lived in the caves but no petro glyphs were found in these ones. Each cavern had many stalactites, stalagmites and columns, some resonating with sound if you struck them. Mike played a drum beat on a few of the columns to grand applause and one of the fellows in our group almost outclassed him. One day someone may connect the columns to an organ to play actual melodies, like the Luray Caves in Virginia we visited on a bike tour.
El Popo did such a good job of taking us to the cave we hired him again for a day at the beach. Nina had to return to Havana, but the Thomsons and us were keen to sample the waters of Cayo Jutias, 65 km north of Viñales. It took 1 ½ hours to reach the beach, mostly due to the poor condition of the second half of the road. The Cayo (island) was rached by a long causeway, lined with mangroves on the mainland side.
Two km farther we reached the beach, a long, narrow stretch of white sand with a restaurant in the middle. El Popo parked the car and we made our way to the beach where we chose four long chairs under a palm leaf roofed palapa. It was time for a swim in the crystal clear waters. We had brought our snorkels and masks with us and the Thomsons rented theirs from the dive shop. The water was relatively shallow, so the waters were just the right temperature for swimming and the nearby reef kept the breakers away from the beach. We made our way into the water, avoiding low grass beds, looking for the best corals. Alas, most of the corals close to shore were dead or just regenerating, but we managed to find a few interesting fish to interest us. I made three trips out to seek out the fish, so it must have been good enough to tempt me, but the Yucatan at Puerto Morelos was much better. Nevertheless we did have a very pleasant day, swimming, relaxing in the sun, chatting with the Thomsons and enjoying a small lunch. What more could you ask for?
0 comments:
Post a Comment