Viñales Valley Tour 4: Sugarcane Rum Cocktail, Caving and Boating in Cuevas del Indio and a Creole lunch
So, we are now at our last stop of the Vinales Valley Tour. We will be doing a little bit of caving and then we will go boating inside the ‘Cuevas del Indio’ (Indian Caves). It is not going to be a long boat trip, in fact it is very quick. We will exit to a small stream, and then afterwards, the tour will be concluded with a hearty ‘Creole lunch’.
But before we go inside the caves, there’s going to be some freshly squeezed sugarcane juice at the gate and there are options to make it into a cocktail by adding rum into it. I told you, this Viñales Valley Tour is a Cuban Cocktail Tour in disguise =)
The Sugarcane Rum cocktail was actually quite nice. I am not foreign to sugarcane. My parent’s house in Cebu, Philippines before was ringed with hectares and hectares of land. Corn is usually planted but there were times that sugarcane was. When I was little, I used to sneak in the fields together with some girlfriends and we would cut some of the sugarcane and suck the juice out of it just by using our teeth and mouth.
Now done with our final refreshment, we can now enter the caves.
The Cuevas del Indio are the dwellings of the aboriginal Cuban Indians who when the Spaniards arrived, fled here in the caves to hide.
There is another cave called ‘Gran Caverna de Santo Tomas’, the biggest cave in Cuba and is said to have one of the largest network of underground caves in Latin America. It has an incredible 46 kilometre length with 8 levels and 10 entrances. This would be perfect for real caving adventure however Blondine and I did not choose this as it will take a lot of time and we have plans of exploring Vinales village and Pinar del Rio in the afternoon.
The last time I did caving was moons ago, year 1996 in Sagada, Philippines. I was 26 at that time. This one was a rough spelunking adventure. Together with my then exBF and a group of young Manilans we scaled down the beautiful ‘Big Cave’ of Sagada. It was a lovely, thrilling and amazing experience. We had 2 guides who each had a lamp. On the ceiling of the Sumaguing Cave were bats hanging upside down. At the bottom of it were pristine pools, and the stalactites and stalagmites have mind-blowing shapes and colours!
It is too bad that I was not able to save (pre-digital days) pictures of my Sagada-Bontoc-Baguio trip.
So after a quick caving trek, we will be taking the boat for a few minutes ride through the underground waters.
We are glad that it is time to eat! And we were glad as well that the rain only poured down when we were at the restaurant. It’s like the rain knew when to fall, making sure we were done with the tour and in the comforts and shelter of Restaurante Finca San Vicente.
Aside from the entertainment band who serenaded us, there was an amateur artist in the house who made personalised sketches of all of us as well.
And because I have had 3 cocktails + 1 coffee in the morning (darn, 3 alcoholic drinks in the morning! haha), I chose a different booze this time for lunch: a Bucanero cerveza.
We had a Creole lunch--grilled Creole chicken (very tasty!), moros y cristianos black rice, boiled potatoes, salad vegetables (not in the picture), flat bread and some rice pudding with preserved fruits for dessert.
Eating at a Cuban restaurant is not complete without entertainment. Every (touristy) restaurant we went to has a resident entertainment band. Only in Camaguey when we had dinner at Restaurante 1514 (cheapest dinner we’ve ever had in Cuba) that we did not encounter any band, mainly because the restaurant is frequented by locals and not by foreigners.
Here are the other stops of the Viñales Valley Tour:
Viñales Valley Tour 1: Best Pina Colada in the world and the ugliest mural painting ever
Viñales Valley Tour 2: Having some real Cuban cigar in a tobacco farm, some Cuban coffee and tropical fruits
Viñales Valley Tour 3: Oshun drink in El Palenque de Cimmarones (cave of the runaway slaves)
Travel Period: May 2012
Destination: Vinales (Pinar del Rio), Cuba
Keep in touch and follow me on Facebook: Travel & Lifestyle Diaries by Dutched Pinay Travels
Happy Travels! Enjoy Life =)
But before we go inside the caves, there’s going to be some freshly squeezed sugarcane juice at the gate and there are options to make it into a cocktail by adding rum into it. I told you, this Viñales Valley Tour is a Cuban Cocktail Tour in disguise =)
The Sugarcane Rum cocktail was actually quite nice. I am not foreign to sugarcane. My parent’s house in Cebu, Philippines before was ringed with hectares and hectares of land. Corn is usually planted but there were times that sugarcane was. When I was little, I used to sneak in the fields together with some girlfriends and we would cut some of the sugarcane and suck the juice out of it just by using our teeth and mouth.
Now done with our final refreshment, we can now enter the caves.
The Cuevas del Indio are the dwellings of the aboriginal Cuban Indians who when the Spaniards arrived, fled here in the caves to hide.
There is another cave called ‘Gran Caverna de Santo Tomas’, the biggest cave in Cuba and is said to have one of the largest network of underground caves in Latin America. It has an incredible 46 kilometre length with 8 levels and 10 entrances. This would be perfect for real caving adventure however Blondine and I did not choose this as it will take a lot of time and we have plans of exploring Vinales village and Pinar del Rio in the afternoon.
The last time I did caving was moons ago, year 1996 in Sagada, Philippines. I was 26 at that time. This one was a rough spelunking adventure. Together with my then exBF and a group of young Manilans we scaled down the beautiful ‘Big Cave’ of Sagada. It was a lovely, thrilling and amazing experience. We had 2 guides who each had a lamp. On the ceiling of the Sumaguing Cave were bats hanging upside down. At the bottom of it were pristine pools, and the stalactites and stalagmites have mind-blowing shapes and colours!
It is too bad that I was not able to save (pre-digital days) pictures of my Sagada-Bontoc-Baguio trip.
We are glad that it is time to eat! And we were glad as well that the rain only poured down when we were at the restaurant. It’s like the rain knew when to fall, making sure we were done with the tour and in the comforts and shelter of Restaurante Finca San Vicente.
Aside from the entertainment band who serenaded us, there was an amateur artist in the house who made personalised sketches of all of us as well.
And because I have had 3 cocktails + 1 coffee in the morning (darn, 3 alcoholic drinks in the morning! haha), I chose a different booze this time for lunch: a Bucanero cerveza.
We had a Creole lunch--grilled Creole chicken (very tasty!), moros y cristianos black rice, boiled potatoes, salad vegetables (not in the picture), flat bread and some rice pudding with preserved fruits for dessert.
Eating at a Cuban restaurant is not complete without entertainment. Every (touristy) restaurant we went to has a resident entertainment band. Only in Camaguey when we had dinner at Restaurante 1514 (cheapest dinner we’ve ever had in Cuba) that we did not encounter any band, mainly because the restaurant is frequented by locals and not by foreigners.
Here are the other stops of the Viñales Valley Tour:
Viñales Valley Tour 1: Best Pina Colada in the world and the ugliest mural painting ever
Viñales Valley Tour 2: Having some real Cuban cigar in a tobacco farm, some Cuban coffee and tropical fruits
Viñales Valley Tour 3: Oshun drink in El Palenque de Cimmarones (cave of the runaway slaves)
Travel Period: May 2012
Destination: Vinales (Pinar del Rio), Cuba
Keep in touch and follow me on Facebook: Travel & Lifestyle Diaries by Dutched Pinay Travels
Happy Travels! Enjoy Life =)
