Totes Mogotes

When I thought of Cuba before this trip I thought of steamy dance clubs, bars clouded with cigar smoke, and classic cars. I did not think of the bucolic farmland scenes that seem to actually make up the majority of Cuba. Walking around Vinales you side-step oxen ambling down the street to visit lush gardens and cool caves. All the while with the epic limestone cliffs, called Mogotes, towering over you.

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I figured that “mogote” meant something like “mammoth in repose” or “slumbering giant” or at least “oversized lump” in English. As it turns out mogote actually means “isolated, steep-sided, residual, hills, which are composed of either limestone, marble, or dolomite and surrounded by nearly flat alluvial plains.”

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I prefer to think that they are pensive prehistoric pachyderms, which due to their incredibly slow metabolisms, are simply staying still for a moment. A moment which has been 10,000 years for us, and they will someday soon (in the next millennia or so) shift positions due to a cramp and forever change the landscape of Vinales.

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In a place like Vinales it just may happen. The town seems to be firmly situated just on the border of queer and quaint.

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Freaky looking doll heads decorate the aforementioned lush gardens, and though the scene is definitely rural there is (apparently) a bar that is decorated to look like a cave where the friendly daughters of the farmers put on a dance show at midnight.

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The food in people’s homes is wonderful and the food served at restaurants is so bad you expect a hidden camera crew to jump out and say “surprise! You are on ‘will they actually eat that camera’!” When you see a tractor going down the street there is almost no way of knowing if it schlepping dirt from one place or another, or if it is a taxi that you can flag down for a lift. As it turns out you can flag it down for a lift even if it is hauling a load. Just perch on top of the pile of tobacco, gravel or manure and off you go!

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At the beaches you never know if you will simply see the perfect fine sand and tranquil blue waters or if you will also see a pink satin bed with whitewash pooling around it’s legs, and a white dressed bride making bedroom eyes to a cameraman (pictures of said event can be found on Tom’s Dad’s camera).

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This strange place is surrounded by tobacco fields, caves, and pristine beaches and is quite possibly one of the most beautiful places in the world.

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