Santa Clara was different again to other places we had been. It is much more of a metropolis and is quite big with some 800k residents. After ditching our bags at the Casa we went for a bit of a wander. Our first stop was one of the local pizza places. We think the one we found was the best yet and we are in fact skipping the Casa dinner to go back there again.
We wandered a bit more around the main city area. Honestly it's got nothing visually on the other places we have been to although it has been the city we were hassled the least in. The next major beach development area is in an area north of here. We we contemplating doing another day trip however with Grand Cayman coming up we've elected to take it easy.
The two main things we did in Santa Clara was visit a cigar factory and head to the Che monument.
The cigar factory tour was amazing. Sadly you could not take photos and they were super strict on that. Let me try and describe it though. Inside there were rows of desks about ten wide. There must have been 150-200 people making cigars in here. This factory only made cigars for export and produced in excess of 15000 per day. Cigar making is considered a prestigious job here and it takes 9 months to learn the art of making cigars. The pay is about $40 per month which is considered a decent job.
What I found interesting was all the different brands of Cubans are made in the same place, it just uses different types of tobacco leaves. In one row of desks they may have been making Cohibas, Romeo y Juliet's and Partagas. The scraps from making the cigars are collected and used for cigarettes. The actual leaves can be dried for a range from 1 to 3 years.
Once the cigars have been hand made, each one is weighed, has the diameter measured and is tested in a machine to make sure the tobacco is rolled at the right level. Not too tight or too loose making air flow bad. They have this special sucker machine to do this.
The finished cigars are then sent to a room where they are sorted by color. This is for presentation and the quality of the leaf is not impacted by color. The are just natural variances. Once sorted they are moved to another room where they have the neck sticker applied and are put into boxes. The entire process done by hand.
After the factory we headed out to the Che monument which was about 2 clicks out of town. I've always been interested in the people in Oz who wear Che t-shirts and have been tempted to ask them if they know who it is beyond just an iconic image and what he became famous for. Che is a huge part of Cuban culture and is used as an example of the true spirit of the Cubans. Although I've read the Motorcycle Diaries and am currently ploughing through a Cuban history book, I'll be the first to admit my knowledge is patchy at best so I'll leave it at that. Defiantly a subject area I am interested in learning more about.
Tomorrow it's back to Havana for our final day before we fly out. I have no idea where the past two weeks have gone.
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Interesting making cigars by hand...loving the blogs
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