Part 20. Out of the city.

We met up with our guide, Linoska, this morning and headed out of the city towards the province of Pinar del Rio and the Vinales valley (and the small town of the same name.) We had a full day planned, so we drove straight until shortly before lunch when we stopped at a roadside cafe. It was so pretty, all open air with a tobacco plantation right beside it. This large barn below is where the tobacco is dried before it's sent to the factory. An odd fact: The plantations can be privately owned, but the cigar factories are all government owned, so you have no choice as to who to sell your tobacco to. We stretched our legs here "played with" the little pigs you'll see in the next post and then headed on to Cuevas del Indio, which are some underground caverns...where we almost got lost .