A very impromptu trip to Cuba!  Enjoyed seeing the culture of this place and talking with some of the people.  Too short of a trip, more time needed for further exploration.  It was sad to see the city of Havana so run-down.  The people are happy, however.  Also, seeing all the old 50’s cars is a pretty cool bonus.  We were told that Castro made it illegal for a regular citizen to own a car newer than 1959.  Government employees do not have the same restrictions.  Also, regular citizens are not allowed to have internet within their homes.

We took a day trip to see Viñales and a cigar farm.   We rented a classic car.  Very cool looking car, unfortunately for us, it didn’t run as well as others.  I don’t think we passed 45mph on the road.  The cigar farm was to be a 2 hour drive, which ended up being 3 hours.  Was interesting to see a cigar being rolled and hear how it the whole process works from start to finish.   The man at the one field we visited said their cigars are organic.  He also said that they are not allowed to have a lot of nicotine (or any…not sure) so they are instructed to pull the stem down the center of the leaf and compost it.  Again, he said that the center stem contains the majority of the nicotine.  Shrug.  Did you know that?  I haven’t fact-checked as I’m just repeating what I heard while there.  Interesting, nonetheless.

Here is a sampling of the many pictures that were taken.