Hamming it up in Havana

I have a love/hate relationship with Cuban food. The love part is that it can be delicious when prepared properly, but when I actually spent time in Cuba, I struggled to find much food that was very tasty at all – the hate part of my trip. It is a trip from my past that has left the most indelible impression on me, but the food from that country has left me less than impressed. I spent the night at a charming little home in the Western part of Cuba in the pleasant town of Vinales, surrounded by tobacco fields and rolling countryside.

Cubans must be acclimatized to loud noises because they are everywhere. One of the things I was looking forward to on the driving trip was a bit more peacefulness.  I never expected to spend so much time among chickens and pigs, in what is conceivably an urban centre, and the noises they made were non-stop. My night’s sleep wasn’t very restful in what I thought would be a peaceful town, away from the racket of Havana – the traffic, the yelling people, the blaring salsa music – but a whole array of new noises was awaiting in this town of Vinales. I assume the locals are just used to the animal noises, but I couldn’t comprehend how anyone’s ears acclimatized to such a racket when your body was trying to sleep. Cuban roosters are obviously not privy to the idea that roosters crow at dawn, while people are waking up to face the day, not all through the night when these same people are trying to sleep. The cock-a-doodle-do’s continued all night. When a rooster wasn’t crowing, there was a pig grunting like there was no tomorrow, which is most likely true, because all that ham comes from somewhere. The next morning, the breakfast was excellent. And the ham – at least it didn’t come out of a can.