Intro video:

Las Terrazas is a small mountain community and UNESCO biosphere reserve that is advertised as a vacation destination for Cubans. Most people came by bus from Havana during the day and departed in the evening, leaving the town blissfully tranquil for the ~1000 residents and 6 international tourists who were fortunate enough to stay there overnight, including Josh and yours truly. 

…and the communally owned pet monkey. His partner died a few years back. I would imagine he is lonely.

Everything about this place was a joy. Our casa was in a lush forest that provided tropical fruit. Las Terrazas was also home to the absolute best food that we ate in Cuba, at La Fonda de Maria. (Maria’s Balcony).

We were driving down the highway when we felt a big bump, and saw one of our wheels rolling off into the distance.

The moments that followed were surprisingly calm, considering we were screeching to a bumpy halt from full highway speeds, dragging the back left corner of the car as we went.

Seemingly before we even stopped, our driver flung open his door and ran after the escaping wheel.

We passengers slowly stepped out of the car. And the driver returned with the wheel, promptly setting it down and opening the trunk to reveal, not a simple jack and basic wrench, but a full size toolbox.

He jacked up the car and we realized 5 bolts had sheared clean off, freeing the break drum, which was still secured to the rogue tire. The break shoe was also badly damaged where it had struck and slid on the pavement.

Wrenches were employed, grease was spread, perfectly good parts on the opposite side of the car were disassembled, and 90 minutes later we climbed back into the car. It once again had all four wheels attached, but the rogue wheel had no break, only 3 of the 5 broken bolts were replaced, and 2 of those bolts had been removed from the good side of the car, leaving both sides with only 3 of their original 5 bolts.

We then drove on to our destination, though much much more slowly.

How many Cuban taxi drivers does it take to “rebuild” a drum brake in an isolated median? Apparently just one.

This man has a small stall in town fixing shoes. Cubans are master recyclers, perhaps to a fault. Your used water bottle may be re-purposed into a drink mix bottle and resold to a thirsty beekeeper, who may use it to store and sell his honey. After that, it might be used to store gasoline and then left on the side of the road for someone to pick up and reuse again, or perhaps to be recycled (Yes, we did see water bottles used for all of these things.) Most stores have used items, from books to clothes to shoes, and the culture of repairing things rather than throwing them away is very strong.

By the way, this man had no idea what huskers meant, where Nebraska was, or that it was even a place. Anything with English on it is in style… no matter what it says.

The national park at Viñales is organically farmed and is absolutely lovely to explore on horseback. Admittedly, the day we decided to do this, it was a little cloudy. Maybe even foreboding… But with no internet connection or any way to get a forecast, the best we could do was look up at the sky, gather up all of our optimism, decide it was good enough to go out, and set off.

 

These magnificent beasts were parked outside our casa when we arrived back from the valley.

Other things that we found parked outside include: 50’s cars, electric mopeds, transtur bus, tractor, horse and buggy, unidentified truck with a large hoist/small crane, bikes and motorcycles. I regret that we didn’t get photos of all of them for you.

Speaking of this casa, it was a great place to stay! We would recommend it to anyone!

In what appears to be a closed down storefront in Viñales, there is an ephemeral ice cream shop. The door opens a few times a day like magic to reveal an ice cream machine. It has no set schedule and closes as soon as the ice cream sells out, usually in less than 10 minutes. 1 cone goes for 1 peso nacional (5 cents USD) and it is awesome. You will know it is open because everyone will suddenly have ice cream. And then they won’t anymore. So if you see someone with a cone, RUN! It will be worth it!