“Come, our taxi is here,” calls Martin, my guide. The taxi is, in fact, an ox cart, and we jump on for the slow, bumpy ride back to the main road.

We are traveling through the bucolic, rolling countryside of Vinales, in Pinar del Rio, Cuba’s westernmost province. I’ve ventured off the beaten track, away from Havana and the tourist meccas of Veradero and Holguin, to experience the ‘real’ Cuba.

The valley time forgot

Vinales is a 2.5 hour drive and about a century from Havana. The frenetic pace of the city recedes with every passing mile along the autopista. The asphalt is in near pristine condition, and no wonder. You can count automobiles in either direction on one hand. Cars are a luxury, so most people wait patiently at the side of the road, hoping for a ride. Stopping to give a lift is just what people do.

Vinales is pretty much a one street town. Here, ox carts, horses and bicycles are more common than cars. Verdant tobacco fields, banana and pineapple plantations and peculiar tall, rounded hills called mogotes (‘haystacks’) make up the region’s landscape. The Cuban cigars favoured by Hemingway, Castro, Che Guevara and Groucho Marx owe their legendary fame to the tobacco that grows in this lush region.

Along the autopista and throughout town, well-orchestrated ‘graffitti’ appears on walls, signs and roadside billboards. The messages vary, but feature a common theme – la revoluccion continues. One sign quotes Fidel reminding people that they are worth more than money. How much of this rhetoric still resonates with Cuba’s citizenry is debatable, something I become more aware of throughout my week here.

The garden of hope

I’m looking for a truly authentic Cuban experience, so I opt to stay in a casa particular rather than a hotel. The Cuban version of a bed and breakfast, casa particulares come in all shapes and sizes. They are independently owned and operated, and depending on the quality of the cook, guests can enjoy some pretty decent Cuban cuisine. I am staying at Casa Nena, a simple but cozy home run by two sisters, along with their mother. Note to self: bring earplugs next time. The roosters wake up early and they take their jobs as alarm clocks very seriously.

What Vinales lacks in the architecture of Trinidad, the beach scene of Varadero and the nightlife of Havana, it more than makes up for in natural outdoor attractions. My agenda doesn’t take long to fill: Hike the countryside. Go horseback riding. Explore the caves. Visit the Casa de Caridad Botanical Gardens.

I decide to visit the gardens first. A short walk brings me to an unassuming gate with the rustic inscription ‘Jardin Botanico’ overhead. Ornamental and medicinal plants tumble across meandering pathways and birds and butterflies dart from flower to flower, like tour guides pointing out individual selections from the vast array of flora.

There are human tour guides too and I chance upon Martin, a retired university professor who now volunteers at the gardens. Martin shares his knowledge freely and his enthusiasm about the region is infectious. I ask him if he would consider taking me out for a hiking tour of the countryside. He beams his agreement, and we make plans for the next day.

Class is in session

We meet up early in the morning and set out to hike Vinales’ network of narrow dirt paths. Only Martin’s voice breaks the silence as he relates the history of the valley. Farmers arrived here from the Canary Islands in the 19^th Century and the agricultural methods they brought with them have not changed much since. We pass a number of small farms until we come across a small schoolhouse. Class is in session, but we poke our heads in and see about a dozen children, heads down, diligently working on some mathematical task. I wonder aloud if the future of these children will be different than their parents.

“Things are starting to change here now,” Martin responds. “It is slow, but we can see it.” He explains that technology is now more freely available, although access to websites is restricted. And there is encouragement for some small businesses, like casa particulares. We leave the children to their class, and continue our journey.

What women want

About an hour into the hike, we stop at a farm that Martin knows well. The whole family comes out to greet us and their hospitality is heartwarming. I meet Antonio, his wife Elena, and their two teenage sons. We sit outside on wooden benches and gorge on fresh pineapple and warm bread. They speak no English but I make small talk in my passable Spanish and they seem to find this quite entertaining.

Elena gravitates to me. She lives in a household of men and she’s pleased to finally have the company of another woman. She proudly shows me her small two-room home, and pulls out her photo album so I can see pictures of her new nephew.

The kitchen is a small wooden shack outside the main house. There’s no electricity, so Elena cooks by candlelight on a wood-burning stove. The heat inside the kitchen is almost unbearable. When I ask how difficult it is to manage without refrigeration, Elena laughs. That is a luxury that they don’t need.

The 10% dilemma

We move on to the cigar rolling lesson. First things first. Antonio takes us into the tobacco shed

where he deftly slices open a coconut with his machete, squeezes in the juice of a grapefruit, adds honey, a generous serving of rum, and voila – a mojito a la Vinales. Then we move on to the lesson. Antonio demonstrates how to measure out the tobacco, select a healthy leaf, roll the tobacco and seal the tightly rolled leaf with a dab of honey. While he works, chickens scratch in the dirt floor and small pigs run in and out of the shed, chased by the resident cat. I listen as he relates stories about farm life. Martin explains that every farm is granted about a half hectare of land for growing tobacco. The farmer must give the government 90% of the crop and can keep only 10% to sell or use. A 90% tax. Slow progress indeed.

The view of life from an ox cart

Suddenly, or at least it seems sudden, the day is half over and we need to make our way back to town. As we bounce along in the ox cart, I think of the challenges Antonio’s family, Nena and Chi Chi and others like them, must cope with just to get by. It’s a life of give and take, of hard work and sacrifice. But they seem happy and intensely proud of their land and their country. The oxen lumber along, our progress slow and steady.