Viñales: Caballos y Tabaco

Viñales is only hours from Havana, but a world apart. Its lush rolling green hills are dotted with fincas, lines with dirt roads, and sprinkled with massive limestone mogotes. The rich soil and unique microclimate make Viñales home to the world’s best tobacco.

As part of Cuba’s tourist trail, Viñales overflows with casas particulares, a guesthouse-homestay hybrid, restaurants, and tours to the surrounding farms and caves. This provided us with the ideal opportunity to go for a horseback riding tour, my first and last.

For years Win has been trying to get me to go horseback riding, and there have been no shortage of chances to do so. I have always been vehemently opposed, as I find horse to be unpredictable in a way that terrifies me. Now, I know there are plenty of people who absolutely love horses and horseback riding. We all have our things.

But, confronted with the beauty of Viñales and the chance to face a fear and try something new, I agreed (albeit begrudgingly).

As a novice horseback rider, wracked with fear, our Spanish-speaking guide gave us the following instructions once atop the horse: left, right, stop, walk. My small, young horse, not being a car, did not respond to commands as such and promptly freaked out. She panicked, I panicked, she tried to buck me off, lost balance, and fell over, taking me down for the ride.

That’s when I found out that the quickest way to win an argument is to have a horse fall on you. I also learned that Cubans are not wont to take that crybaby bullshit, so I ended up riding a horse (a calmer horse) for the next four hours.

It was four hours of blind fear, riding through gorgeous landscapes, limping around farms and caves, and thinking of ways to combine my scant Spanish skills to ask our guide nicely to slow the hell down. We gained some insight into the tobacco growing process, as well as how communism and farm life interact (hint: 90 percent of the crop goes to the government). 

We also met whatever this creature is.

In the end, I spent the rest of our vacation in various states of limping and healing (partially due to the fact that horses are heavy and partially to the fact of having ridden a horse for that long in general). But now I know that I can get back on the horse, in the most literal way imaginable.  

Sweet Treats

Between Kuala Lumpur and the Malaysian border with Thailand lies the mildly-alpine cluster of towns known collectively as the Cameron Highlands. With its cool, crisp air, its land a patchwork of green blanketing rolling hills, and its charming colonial-inspired, mock-Switzerland architecture, the Highlands are a popular getaway for tourists and Malaysians alike.

Overrun with tea plantations, butterfly gardens, and organic farms of every variety -- vegetable, mushroom, honey, strawberries, and even a handful of cactus farms -- this part of Malaysia offered a calm pit stop after the rest of our jungle-trekking, mosquito-swatting travels.

Few foreigners were to be seen in the sea of weekend day-tripping Malaysians --- Muslim, Chinese, and Indians all accounted for. The weekend prices skyrocketed. The mountain roads were heavy with traffic, restaurants packed in the evening.

It wasn’t all as advertised. More than anything, we waded through an endless sea of souvenirs, trinkets, and junk. Most of the so-called farms were poor imitations, designed to lure visitors into unnecessary purchases. The butterfly and insect gardens had seen better days, sad and trampled as they were.

Despite the gimmicky atmosphere and over-saturated market, we got what we asked for. The honey was sweet, the butterflies big and beautiful, the insects and reptiles bizarre and intriguing, the strawberries ripe and luscious. And, equally important,  the Indian food plentiful and cheap.

And Now for Something Completely Different

Among East African countries, Ethiopia is incredibly unique. The culture, the landscape, the clothing, the food, it all stands tribute to a country that isn’t quite like any other. An interesting combination of Middle Eastern and African influences, visible in the facial features, hair texture, and style of dress, stepping off the plane in Ethiopia was the beginning of an experience like no other.

With landscape remarkably similar to the American Southwest, only with a slight, almost imperceptible, color change, Ethiopia is dry, arid, and sparsely populated outside of the capital city of Addis Ababa. And outside of this bustling city, you find a country that relies on agriculture, where farm animals clatter down cobblestone streets or sleep in the shade of gas pumps; where donkeys and camels laden with crops, water, or cargo often outnumber motor vehicles.

The food itself speaks of strong tradition. The brewing of coffee is ritualized, complete with a ceremony. The staple bread, a pancake called injera, is made from a grain only available in Ethiopia (which, lucky for me, happens to be gluten free). Topped with any variety of sauces or stews (currently without meat, as we are here during their Lenten fasting period), injera is eaten using only the right hand.

Even time works a bit differently here. Okay, more than a bit. Following the Ethiopian (Coptic Christian) calendar, it is currently August of 2005. And when it comes to telling time of day, a bit of clarification is necessary. Our midnight and noon (12 a.m. and 12 p.m.), are instead placed at sunrise and sunset. So, for the Ethiopians, what we consider 7 a.m. is 1 a.m., as you have had one hour of daylight. It can all get a bit confusing.

Men and women walk cloaked in long pieces of white fabric, many women keeping their heads covered; though this seems more about keeping the strong sun at bay than about strict modesty. Religious tattoos can be seen on hands and forearms, necks and jaw lines, cheeks and foreheads.

And, though it is such a unique and different culture, we have (for the most part) been welcomed with smiles and warm greetings. 

Caffeinated

Rich and aromatic, dark and velvety. Even as someone who drinks very little coffee, I can appreciate a good cup o’ joe. And, seeing as coffee is second only to oil in global exports, I am clearly not the only one. When it comes to getting a cup of high quality coffee or espresso, there are few places in the world better than the rolling green hills, crisscrossed and sectioned, of Colombia’s Zona Cafetera.

Colombia, home of the world-recognized (fictional) Juan Valdez, is number two in global coffee exports and the number one producer of Arabica, the world’s highest quality coffee. The label ‘Colombian Coffee’ has become synonymous with excellence. So, we made it a list item to tour a coffee farm (or ‘finca’) and see what the fuss was about.

The tour of a local, family-run coffee finca outside of Manizales was conducted entirely in Spanish, and, despite our speaking skills not being up to par, we had a surprisingly easy time understanding the majority of what our guide was explaining. She led us through the entire planting process, from tiny roots to fruit to roasted coffee beans, while showing us each part of the process on the sprawling coffee plantation.

Win tried his hand at being a coffee laborer, searching each branch for only the ripe, red fruit, plucking them individually, and watching his bucket as it filled at an unbelievably slow pace. The life of these workers, going from farm to farm, making a living one kilogram at a time, cannot be easy. Yet, it is an integral step in the process, a process that supports vast swathes of Colombia’s people.

Incredible time and consideration goes into each step of the process, ensuring that the years of work that lead up to an individual harvest aren’t wasted. Colombia’s coffee farms are outstanding in their emphasis on organic, hand-picked crops, ensuring the absolute highest quality in the finished product. 

They are proud of the fact that they do not use machines for harvests, that they rely on original sorting methods (does it float?) for separating good beans from bad. They are proud that they are careful about what fuel is used for roasting and what bags for storing to prevent flavor contamination. They know that size matters, and sort the coffee beans as such. The coffee growers know what works, and it is this human touch that distinguishes Colombian coffee as some of the world’s finest.