Where cigars are born

Today is Sunday - I think it's mandatory to be lazy so we have been.  A lie in, breakfast looking out over the valley and the ranges followed by a bit of a morning nap. The maid arriving to clean the room put an end to that so we ordered a taxi (Perico who had been our taxi driver yesterday too). 

First stop was a casa that we had read organised tours.  Fortunately a guide (Fidel with a much smaller beard) was free - well he was about to head off mountain biking and agreed to take us to a tobacco farm instead.  With his bike stowed in the boot, off we went down the pot hole filled tarseal road and then a clay farm track.  Perico navigated easily between pedestrians, mopeds, horses, bikes, mud pits and large caverns in the middle of the "road". 

The tobacco farm is in the silent valley and Fermin sat us down in a covered outdoor table and bought us mojitos (not quite lunch time so perhaps a little early) and offered us a cigar.   Then it was the story and demonstration of tobacco making.  Fermin spoke very slow spanish for us which we partly understood and Fidel translated the rest.  Farmers must sell 90% of their crop to the government but they keep 10% for themselves to make their own cigars.  Each family have their own recipe that the leaves are soaked in: rum, fruit juice, camomile, honey, etc.

We parted ways with Fidel as he was off to map a mountain biking track for tourists.  Mostly he gets lost but he's starting to get more familiar.  We asked Perico to take us to a restaurant looking out over the valley (Balcon de Valle).  There is no menu, but you get the option of various meat and then a multi course meal of salad and banana chips, soup, main with three rices, and pineapple and bananas.  We were seated on a terrace that is a health and safety nightmare, with chickens, turkeys and cats milling around stepping on our feet and generally being a nuisance.  We amused ourselves trying to take pictures of some kind of bird of prey that kept soaring in front of us.

We're back at the hotel and contemplating another nap.