Vinales Cuba September 2012

Vinales

Today we drove from Havana to Vinales. It's an hour and half drive. Vinales is very mountainous and beautiful and very popular among bus tours and tourists. See Havanatour and Cubatur for prices and destinations. These tour guides can be found in all hotels or offices all over the country. 

Vinales mountains
There are also many souvenir stalls selling Che Guevara t shirts, paintings, cigars, cigar holders, postcards, books, jewellery and trinkets.



Vinales is also home to the caves and we took a tour of the caves for 5CUC/$5/£3. It was pretty and there was a boat tour too. It was about 20 minutes long. If you've seen stalagmites before I wouldn't recommend it as its very samey.

Cave
We then went to Pinar Del Rio where we went to a cigar factory. It was 5CUC/$5£3 for the tour which is also 20 minutes, the guide told us that the factory makes 5000 cigars daily so around 100 cigars per person per day. There are about 30 cigar rolls in the factory. It's a very highly manually skilled job and the workers are trained for 9 months beforehand and not all workers at the end get the job as its so difficult.



All the brands are made at the same factory and sold in Cuba and worldwide. There is a tobacco and cigar store in the factory where you can buy cigars. 

Cigars can be bought in boxes of 3,5,10,25 or 50 or singular. Mini cigars are also sold but only in packs of 10,20 and 25. Prices for 1 cigar range from 3CUC/$3/£1.90 to 10CUC/$10/£6 and boxes from 13CUC/$13/£8 TO 100CUC+/$100/£62 for 25 cigars per box.

If purchasing more than 50 cigars a receipt should be given and retained to show at the airport on your exit. 

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