Today I simply took to the hills. The limestone landscape is
spectacular so I just trusted that there would be good stuff to see. I started
walking north, for about 3 km, because yesterday I had seen a sign to “cave
paintings”, which I took to indicate prehistoric paintings. Alas, no.
Apparently several years ago an enterprising artist cleared all the vegetation
from a wall maybe 20 m high and just as long, and using garish colors painted a
mural with a couple of humans facing a giant ammonite and a few dinosaurs.
Fortunately the thing can be seen from the road and I saved the entrance fee of
3 CUC’s.
The area where the painting was located is a big
amphitheater surrounded by ghostly limestone mounds, but all of them to far for
me to do something crazy like try to climb them. Instead I stopped at a small
beer stand, refreshed myself, and engaged in conversation with a farmer who
invited me to see his tobacco barn. He had already harvested, dried, and sold
this year’s crop, but he showed me the seeds he will use next season (the small
tobacco plants are grown in nursery beds, and once they are about 10 cm high
they are transplanted to the fields), a handful of dried tobacco leaves, and
finally tried to sell me a dozen home-made cigars for 20 CUC’s. I was tempted,
but then thought about passing them past Mexican, American, Russian, and
American customs and decided it was not worth the risk.
By the time I got back from my walk I was hot and slightly
dehydrated, so I took a shower and a long nap. I only woke up to have dinner
(again, a superabundant dinner that I barely dented) and went back to bed. I
hate to say it, but I am getting travel weary.
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