"Mission impossible: finding a car in La Habana" or "How I almost had dinner with Fidel"

We had a great vision for our 3 weeks stay in Cuba! We had a plan! It was perfect! It was flawless...
...we only needed one simple thing: a car! And this was our single flaw...

At one point we would be willing to take this one...

Well, let me tell you how everything went from the very beginning...

Of course that, as 3 experienced travelers, we planned the essentials of our trip ahead. Of course renting a car before hand was part of our plans and of course we took all the proper measures to meet our goals. But things were not set to be that simple... and due to a combination of factors, suddenly we found ourselves without a car - less then a week from departing to Cuba...
OK! We are all southern europeans, we can easily deal with the unexpected! No panic! Each one of us tried to give her contribution to solve the mess we were in. Marion contacted other agencies before leaving; I always believed that once in La Habana we should be able to find something... but Simona... Well, for those of you who know her, no words are needed to describe her. But for those of you who don't, let me just tell you: she is resourceful and she is THE Queen of Networking!!!!!

S. networking in the streets of La Habana

Of course she had to be the one with the most creative solution for our car problem! In times of difficulties, a good queen of networking will obviously rely on her network. Oh boy, oh boy, and what a network! Through her contacts she was able to establish a connection with a close relative of, no other than... tcha-nammmmmm... FIDEL CASTRO!!!!

Just after calling our connection...

So for a few days I was exhilarated with the possibility of having some sort of connection with Fidel and... quíça... maybe we would meet him... and quíça... maybe we could have dinner in his house?!?!? This would all be great, if it weren't for the fact that this close relative of him doesn't even live in Cuba, and most likely is not in speaking terms with the Comandante. And even though trying to get a rental car via a relative of the Lider Maximo was certainly the most creative idea one could have in such circumstances, in the end we only got the car thanks to Pepe, our lovely host in La Habana.
After searching the whole of La Habana, when all hope seemed lost, finally we found the last available! It was a piece of ****, a tired old Honda, with more mileage than it should, and certainly overpriced!... but it had to do it!

The license plate of our "Poderoso"

Co-pilot and pilot ready!

We were set to leave La Habana with our own "Poderoso" and we hit the road, heading to the wonderful Viñales Valley, a Unesco World Heritage site.

On our wayyyyy.... weeeeeeee.....

The bumps in the trip were totally worthed as we were blown away by the beauty of the valley and the uniqueness of the ways of life here.

My cheesy attempt to do a panoramic of the valley...

After the heavy tropical rains, a nice surprise!

Viñales: amazing!

Viñales is a simple village, that survives on agriculture and tourism.

Streets and surroundings of Viñales village

The campesinos still work the land with traditional methods, in intimate contact with nature, and this is part of the secret formula of the excellent tobacco grown here (the best in Cuba).

All done the old fashion way... no oil crisis here... unbelievable!

Viñales welcomed us in a very unpretentious way and despite being so touristic is still possible to get a pulse of the village and to interact with locals. Especially with the "fury" ones!

In the streets of Viñales.

S. networking in Viñales valley...

Some of our (starving) fury friends!

And what better way to integrate in the life of a Cuban city than by going to Casa de La Musica after dinner and indulging in this great environment, with life music and real salseros!

Casa de La Musica. The man playing the maracas was over 80 years-old and told us we were the most beautiful ladies that evening... ai, ai, los cubanos...

And of course our queen didn't loose her opportunity to adequately network with the locals!!!