Bienvenidos a Vinales

Arrived in Cuba in late afternoon and after asking around to see if anyone was heading directly to Vinales, gave up and headed for central Havana. The city is huge, and varies a lot. The central area where I stayed is quite old and looks a bit like an unkempt Buenos Aires.

I found a casa particular to stay in – basically someone´s home where you stay in a room of your own – on the 8th floor of a building which offered great views overlooking the city, though in this area it is pretty rundown. Inside, however, most of the furniture is gorgeous solid wood – very expensive looking old colonial furniture that is probably worth more than most people here make in a year.

Being pretty beat from the previous night´s lack of sleep, I wandered around a bit at night, but hit the sack pretty early so I could catch the bus early the next day for Vinales.

After a 3 hour bus ride, I arrived in Vinales – a small town, much more relaxing in atmosphere. You can wander around Vinales easily by foot, (and can walk to a vast array of climbs in the area). Again, most people here stay with local families who provide room and board at a reasonable price – also offering you the opportunity to brush up a bit on your Spanish. There is one casa in particular which is recommended for climbers – Ryan has a large section booked for the two of us with two separate bedrooms and a kitchenette (which they also use to prepare our food). When I arrived a couple of climbers had just left and another couple was leaving the following day. Strangely, however, after 3 days, we haven´t seen another climber in sight. There is one other foreign climber in town that we know of, but otherwise there is only us. This makes for easy access to climbs, but is a bit of a shame on the social side, and I was hoping to run into a bit of a climbers community in the area.

On our first day of climbing, we started out with a couple of moderate climbs inside a cave. The walls of the cave are about 3 or 4 metres apart and rise 25-30 metres, opening up to the sky. Upon reaching the top of the climbs, you are greeted by a cool breeze and bright sunshine – very nice. After this we tackled a tougher climb outside the cave – a long 30 metre slightly overhanging route called Ana Banana (11b). It has a great mixture of thin pockets, edges, and a couple of sharp crack jams (luckily only a couple). I managed to lead this cleanly, though was greeted with a downpour two thirds of the way to the top. After this, we tried a couple more before attempting a short 12a that may have had a few holds come off – it was an incredibly fingery climb with a crux at a slight overhang where you had to dyno from a couple of sharp two finger huecos to a sharp nubbin the size of 4 stacked nickels. From there an incredibly balancy section in which you try to grip onto what resembles a sharply textured stucco wall.

The following day we managed a couple of multi-pitch routes which offered commanding views of the farms below from 30 stores up a steep vertical cliff face. Looking down we could see hawks (or are they vultures) circling in the thermals below us.

Today we will be exploring another cave with a mixture of moderate and difficult routes. My fingers are starting to get pretty sore already.

Cuba - part 1 - getting there

I have been keeping an eye open for flight deals that will enable me to escape the long cold wet Vancouver winter for at least a brief respite. The top contenders are Bangkok and Cuba - both of which offer some amazing sport climbing. Bangkok offers the added attraction of amazing food on the cheap, while Cuba has been beckoning me for quite some time, and I may not have long before Wal-Mart replaces socialism and turns the culture on its head. I have also been keeping an eye out for cheap flights to London, since that might offer the chance to hook up with a relatively affordable flight to Zanzibar to visit Steph on her brief holiday from MSF in Darfur. While Cuban flights don't come cheap, Cancun flights are often on special and there are daily flights between Cancun and Havana.

Well, with Cuba having a slight lead to begin with, it turned out to be good timing. I ran into a friend at the climbing gym a couple of days before the New Year who was heading to Cuba for the month of January. With some incentive to get off my butt and replace my 'aspirational targets' with some hard tickets, I was able to find a flight to Cancun for under $200 (though it turns out to be $450 after taxes). A quick request for time off on very short notice, and only a few days later, here I am updating this new blog from a backstreet hostel in Cancun.

Getting from the airport was a bit of a worry for me since I arrived after 11pm. Some internet searching told me I might have to fork out $60 US one way from the airport(which would quickly add up to put a serious dent in my intentions to travel on a budget) As it turns out, the collectivos run until much later than many web sites suggest, and I found one- though I did have to wait for a while for it to fill up since most of the passengers promptly boarded large buses bound for their all-inclusive hotels. In the end they didn't even bother trying to fill a van- there was just two of us so they just put us in a taxi (owned by the same company that runs the collectivos). We took the scenic route into downtown Cancun (where I am staying), by driving through the hotel strip to drop off the other passenger - a woman from Nanaimo on a two week timeshare holiday. The strip itself reminded me of Las Vegas - clean and classy, but a bit sterile, unreal, and totally surreal for 99.9 percent of the Mexican population.

In the end, my driver managed to find my modest hostel even though it was tucked away on a small cul-de-sac which itself ran off a relatively small street. It seems fairly clean and tidy and quiet - hardly anybody seems to be here, but that is ok with me.

A rough start

The morning started out a little rough - and these things seem to happen in 3's:

1 - While attempting to extricate my brand new toothbrush from my toiletry bag, it somehow springs out and into the air. With catlike deftness I snatch it as it passes at shoulder height. Unfortunately, cats do not have opposing thumbs so it simply bounces once off my hand and plops into the toilet.

2 - I am only a 20 minute walk from the bus station, so I decide to head out a bit early to walk and look around on the way with plenty of time to catch the 10am bus from the city to the airport. Unfortunately, when I am almost there, I realize that I still have the keys to the hostel where I am staying. Thinking that I can probably afford to catch the 10:30 bus, I decide to run back to return them. It takes me a little longer than I thought, but I manage to make it back to the bus station with about 10 minutes to spare. Unfortunately, in the process, and in the humid Mexican heat, I have turned my nice clean shirt into a soaking mass sticking to me like saran wrap.

3 - While I seemed to arrive on time, with the bus casually loading people, whoever was manning the ticket booth decided to go on a break - and they will not let me onto the bus without a ticket. They redirect me to another place where I can buy the ticket, but there is a lineup that takes about 10 minutes. In the end I buy the ticket just as the bus is pulling away and I have to wait for the 11am bus.

In the morning a little over-hyped about my impending adventure into an unknown (at least to me) part of Cuba, I feel a little like Indiana Jones. The day, however, seems determined to cast me instead in the role of Mr. Bean.

Luckily things get much better after this (can they get worse), and I make it intact into Cuba by that afternoon.