Orquideario

Today, Saturday, was our traditional long excursion to discover more of Cuba than just Havana.  We went Soroa a very small town in the western part of the island.  We stayed in one central location for the most part, and we got to see a giant waterfall, climb a mountain and go to an orchid farm.

            The first thing that we did once we got to the area was to start a long trek to go and see a waterfall.  Now, I believe that there is a push in the United States for major landscapes to be made visible to as many people as possible.  Whether that be that you can drive up to it, boat up to it, or do the minimum amount of walking possible, you still get there.  Not so in Cuba.  If you want to see awe-inspiring views then you are going to have to work for them.  So we began the terrifyingly steep trek down to see this astounding natural phenomenon.  Once we got to the bottom it was incredible because you could clamber and rock-bound to your hearts content.  If you wanted to get behind it you could.  No one was there to make sure that you weren’t an idiot and did something to hurt yourself.  Quite refreshing.

I was operating under the misconception that the orchid farm (called an Orquideario) was at the top of this giant mountain. Nope, just a really amazing spot to take videos and pictures.  So I hiked up a mountain in Cuba, never done that before and hopefully never will do that again!  I was amazed to see when I got to the top that these men had hauled up massive quantities of water and goods for people to buy once they reached the top.  I literally have absolutely no idea how they managed that. 

So after we hiked up the giant mountain, we went to the orchard farm.  Señor Tómas Felipe Camacho built it in honor of his daughter Pilar who died during his wife’s miscarriage.  I have never seen so many beautiful, delicate flowers and smelled such a heady scent. It actually in recent years has been turned into a Botanical Garden so it had many exotic varieties of plants that I could not name in English or in Spanish.  One interesting thing that I found out was that orchids have to be grown in an environment of 80-90% humidity.  While Cuba is generally a humid country, they still needed to use green houses (viberos) in order to maintain an ideal growing environment.  The whole garden was such an amazing analogy for Cuba and the fact that it has suffered through so many trials (the current government being its most recent trial) but it still is one of the headiest and most exquisite cultures I have ever come into contact with.