Between tobacco hills and meadows: the beautiful Viñales 🌿

Those who read our last post know that Havana was almost a little culture shock for us country folks 😄 (too loud, too dirty, and too much going on).

For this reason, we were even more looking forward to the small but charming Viñales. Here, the world is still as it should be.

One might almost think we traveled back to the 19th century. The locals live very minimally, and hardly anyone owns a car; instead, they have a few horses and a carriage.

The place is fascinatingly quiet and simply beautiful! 😍 A bit comparable to a Western town 🤠

This time, we stayed at a small hostel where we had our own little apartment.

Leyanis (the owner) organized horse riding for us 🐴; it was both of our first times on a horse 😄

After some initial difficulties, I think we managed just fine, and we actually found it very relaxing - surrounded by tobacco fields and meadows 🌿

In between, we stopped at a tobacco plantation, where we were first explained how cigars are made and then shown how a cigar is rolled 🚬

We were even allowed to try one, although I (Kathrin) didn't really enjoy it 🤢 Magge had enough after half of it too 😄

The weather in Viñales was a bit cooler than usual, so we unfortunately couldn't use the pool at our accommodation for the two days.

But that's fine, because it allowed us to explore the little town a bit on foot and enjoy a beer or two in the rocking chair 🍺

Yesterday, Magge paid a visit to Barber Osmani 💇🏽‍♂️

The result speaks for itself ☺️

Another highlight: Mojitos for the equivalent of 50 cents each 🍸

Originally, we were supposed to travel to Matanzas for 2 nights and then to Varadero for 3 nights, but to make it a bit less stressful, we decided to spend all 5 nights in Varadero instead ☺️ for this, Airbnb is really convenient, as we could cancel for free up to one day before arrival and already got our money back 💸

So next stop: Varadero 🔆🌊🐚🏖️