Vinales is another important agricultural area in Cuba with many coffee, tobacco and other farms. Its also an incredibly beautiful area with really unusual round mound like mountains which they call Mogotes.

We took a tour on horse back to take in the local area and it was just breathtaking. We spent 5 hours riding around and visited a tobacco farm to see the drying houses where they dry the leaves after they are picked and learnt about the fermentation process. Apparently a lot of the local farmers keep about 10% of their tobacco crop for themselves and instead of the normal fermentation process they ferment the leaves naturally without chemicals instead using honey, rum (of course!) and fruit juices. They also remove the stem of the leaves which contains most of the nicotine before they roll the leaves into cigars. We got to see them rolling these organic cigars and tried one for ourselves and it was definitely different and really nice too.

About 3 hours west of Vinales is a diving centre called Maria la Gorda which is almost the eastern most tip of Cuba (we really did cover some ground!) and we took a day trip out there for some beach time. The beach was beautiful, almost deserted and with brilliant white sand and crystal clear blue waters. In the afternoon we headed out snorkeling which was fabulous! We saw a huge barracuda, flying fish with razor like noses, blow fish and all sorts of tropical fish in amazing colours. Amazing and we really wished we had our dive licenses to do more, something to work on!

All over Cuba we have been staying in casa particulars which are very like B&Bs where you get to stay with a local family and therefore get a much better view of real Cuban life. Of course as a private business in Cuba there are huge controls on the casa particulars and the families can only rent out two rooms in their houses and have to pay huge taxes per month even if they don't have anyone staying. In Vinales we stayed with a fabulous family and really felt at home, they couldn't have done more for us and it really added to our enjoyment of our time in Vinales.