solo travel Archives - Page 5 of 37

Andorra-Lithuania trip 2024 Asia Latvia

Return to Riga

I had arrived in Riga by land coming from Vilnius, Lithuania. I think it was about 3:00pm when I arrived and I checked into my hotel. I had booked a bed at a hostel but something got screwed up with my reservation so at the last minute I ended up booking a room at a hotel in the centre. This was my second time in Riga, and I would only be there a short time, leaving very early the next morning. But I was delighted to have a bit of time to revisit the city.

It had been exactly two years since I was there last when I came for a four day long weekend in May. It was just as lovely as I remembered. I don’t really have much to say about Riga this time, because I said most of my impressions when I arrived the first time, so if you’re interested in going to Riga or knowing what it’s like, go back and read the two posts that I made in 2022. This time I’ll just say that it is terrific city. I think it’s one of my favourite cities in Europe. It’s very pretty and pleasant, with wonderful architecture, an interesting history, and a nice vibe.

I already had a sense of my way around, so I walked around the historic centre and took in some of the lovely streets and buildings that I had seen before, before going to a cigar lounge (The Oak Lounge) to sit and have a cigar of course. I wandered over to Albert(a) Street past the famous art nouveau buildings, which truly are exquisite.

I grabbed a bite to eat somewhere unremarkable. And I made plans to meet up with a friend. When I had been to Riga in 2022 I had booked a private historical walking tour of the city with a fellow and we got along quite well. At the end of the tour we went for drinks with some of his friends and it was the highlight of my trip. So I let him know that I was coming to town and we met up exactly two years later at exactly the same bar with a couple of the same friends and a couple of new ones. Again, it was my favourite thing about the trip. It’s just a good group of guys at a cool neighbourhood bar that I would have never found on my own. I like the bar so much that I’m not even going to say what it’s called or where it is because I don’t want to encourage too many people to go there and ruin its authentic feel. (But I will post a couple of pictures and if you can figure it out, good for you.) They have a little leafy courtyard where people drank and nobody minded if you smoked. I spent a couple of hours there, leaving after dark and walking back to my hotel.

*bar door on arrival; bar courtyard; bar door on departure, a few drinks later*

That was it. Like I said, it was a short visit. My flight the next morning was at 8:20 AM heading to Stockholm. The flight was part of the reason that I decided to go back to Riga in the first place, because the flight from Riga to Stockholm was ridiculously cheap and while I had been to Sweden I had never been to Stockholm and it seemed like a great opportunity. The day of my flight to Stockholm was the 8th day of my trip and I must admit that all of these crazy early morning flights, days constantly on the go, and late nights out was starting to catch up with me a little bit but I was still excited to see what lay ahead. Read on for Stockholm…

Andorra-Lithuania trip 2024 Asia Lithuania

Vilnius: It’s Pretty Amazing

I left Barcelona the day after my trip to Andorra and flew to Vilnius. A direct flight. My first time to Lithuania. There were really only two things that I wanted to do in Lithuania: see Vilnius and visit the Hill of Crosses. Vilnius was first on the list.

Lithuania is a Baltic state, which shares borders with Poland, Latvia, and Belarus, and has a coast along the Baltic Sea. It was a former member of the Soviet Union. Vilnius is Its capital. Lithuania doesn’t get a lot of attention from a tourism perspective, which led the government in about 2018 to come out with a tourism slogan comparing Vilnius to the g-spot: “Nobody knows where it is, but when you find it – it’s amazing“. Terrific.

Arrival in Vilnius

Since this was kind of a last-minute trip, I didn’t have my pick of places to stay. If there were excellent hostels in Vilnius, they were booked up by the time I went there, so I ended up staying at a proper hotel (a Conti Hotel), a little more than I wanted to spend but still within my budget and walking distance to the centre of the city. It was a nice hotel with a swanky lobby in a comfortable room.

My flight landed in the evening and by the time I got to my hotel (via taxi) it was about 8:30pm and the sun was low in the sky. I threw my bag down and walked into the city centre. I was immediately so happy. Barcelona is a good city, but it wasn’t my cup of tea. And Andorra was really just checking a box and I wasn’t that thrilled with what I saw. Vilnius was a welcome sight. I’ve said repeatedly that I’d love former Soviet countries; I have yet to visit one that I didn’t love. And Vilnius just felt so comfortable. I saw the orthodox churches, the charming buildings, and the cobblestone streets, felt the cool air and saw and the relatively stony faces of the people that I passed and I felt at home.

Unfortunately, shortly after landing I got a text message from work and it kind of derailed what should have been a perfectly pleasant evening, but aside from work drama that kept me up until the wee hours of the morning, I did enjoy my walk around the city and I had an excellent dinner on a patio over Georgian restaurant (Khinkalnya Vilnius), was persuaded to drink a couple of shots of chacha by the owner, and had a Cuban cigar on the patio. It was a great introduction to the city, and I couldn’t wait to wake up an explore. (I only got to sleep for about three hours, so I didn’t have to wait long.)

Wandering Vilnius

The next morning, as always, I got up early as it was my only day in the city and I had a lot to see. Vilnius doesn’t have a lot of specific touristic sites; the main thing is just to walk around and enjoy the atmosphere, all of the churches and charming cafes, public art, the pedestrianized streets with restaurants and cute shops.

I don’t know what it’s like to visit at other times of the year, but I think that spring was lovely. It was a little bit cool in the evening which I liked, and it was warm enough during the day to sit outside comfortably. The lilac bushes were in full bloom and everything was green.

There is a ridiculous number of orthodox churches in the city and there it’s worth ducking into all of them. Some of them had beautiful singing happening, and all of them had the glittering excess of Russian orthodox churches, which I love.

For me, one of the key things that I wanted to visit was an abandoned building just outside of the city centre. It was a pleasant walk across a bridge, aside from when an American man who was there standing on the street and proselytizing about Jesus told me I was ongoing to hell when I didn’t take one of his brochures. Oh well. The building is a spectacular abandoned stadium that was opened in 1971 as the Vilnius Palace of Concerts and Sports. It is a massive, brutalist-style concrete structure built in an unusual sort of wave pattern. At some point it was converted into a sort of mall and then it was closed completely in about 2004. It is now covered in graffiti. It is excellent and just a little creepy.

It is also located just near a Jewish cemetery which is also pleasant for a bit of a wander.

Užupis

The other place that I really wanted to visit in Vilnius is the semi-autonomous area of Užupis, which means “beyond the river.” It’s just a short walk from the Old Town, across the river (obviously). In 1997, a group of artists declared it the Republic of Užupis. It’s not really its own state, but it was set up that way. There is a border crossing and it has its own flag and constitution, which is on display in the street and includes such mandates as everyone has a right to be happy, man has the right to individuality, and everyone has the right to appreciate their unimportance. I dig it.

The motto of Užupis is “Don’t Fight”, “Don’t Win”, “Don’t Surrender”.

Part of the idea behind the creation of Užupis is a belief founded in the Aristotelian thought that people should live in small communities where everyone knows one another, which will result in people being more honest and happy. The area is a terrific place to visit. While it was once kind of a derelict ghetto, now it just feels like a proper part of the city but with lots of public art on display and at a lot of small independent businesses and artisan shops. In a way, it’s like Freetown Christiania in Copenhagen except without the focus on drugs.

*The Užupis Cat, which comes with a little poem. Worth finding.*

Back across the River…

I visited the MO Museum (Museum of Modern Art), which is relatively small but definitely worth a visit.

I thought Vilnius was delightful.

Smoking Cigars in Vilnius

Before dinner, I sought out one of Vilnius’ cigar lounges. For a former Soviet country, Vilnius is kind of difficult to smoke in. Indoor smoking wasn’t allowed, and it seemed to be banned on all of the patios. The Georgian restaurant that I ate at the night before let me smoke outside but only because I was the only person on the patio due to the cold weather. Fortunately, there are several hidden smoking rooms in the basements or backrooms of restaurants and a few proper cigar lounges.

I visited one cigar lounge in the old city, Cigarų namai, which was excellent. It had everything you’d want in a cigar lounge, an excellent selection of cigars, beverages for purchase and a calming room full of soft leather furniture. The only downside was they were playing the worst smooth jazz music that I’ve ever heard. It seemed like they only had one CD and it was on repeat. I was there for about two hours, and I heard the CD at least twice. I wanted to kill myself. At some point I just put in my headphones and listen to a podcast while I enjoyed my cigars. Music aside, it was a lovely interlude.

There is another cigar lounge called Cigarų kambarys (Cigar Room) located at Vilniaus g. 29 but upstairs with no obvious signage. I went there as well but it was empty.

I had dinner on a leafy patio and wandered the streets until it was dark. I was very happy in Vilnius, but I was also excited for the next day when I would travel by car to Latvia, stopping at the Hill of Crosses along the way.

Andorra-Lithuania trip 2024 Asia Spain

Barcelona Beginnings

(What was I doing in Barcelona in May 2024? Start here.)

This was not my first trip to Spain. In 2009 my mother and I had done a two and a half week backpacking trip in Portugal, which led us to the north of that country, from where we walked across a bridge into Spain and visited a town called Tui. So technically I had been to Spain, but it always felt like something that had a little asterisk next to it in the sense that I really hadn’t seen much of the country at all. So when I found a reasonably priced flight to Barcelona this seemed like a good opportunity. It was a good opportunity in two respects: one it allowed me to remove the asterisk next to my visit to Spain; and two, it also would allow me to visit the micro country of Andorra. More on that in another post. So even if I wasn’t excited about Barcelona, I was happy to be going there.

I arrived just before 7:00 PM and took a bus into the city centre. I was staying at St Christopher’s Inn hostel, which was just a block off of the Plaça de Catalunya and right near the Rambla and the metro station. Next in central. It was a good hostel. It didn’t have any frills, but the people at the front desk were wonderfully welcoming and the hostel itself was functional. It had all the things that require in a hostile: girl only dorms, privacy curtains, and lights and plugins in each bunk.

I ditched my stuff and went out to explore.

I just wandered around that first night without much of an agenda. I got the lay of the land, had a dinner of hummus and eggplants, and smoked a cigar. I was also fortunate to happen across some kind of a outdoor free concert happening in a courtyard, so I watched part of that, which was quite fun.

Some cities that I go to make a great first impression on me and others do not. Barcelona was in the latter category. That’s not to say that I disliked it. I didn’t dislike it, it just didn’t impress or excite or fascinate me. And this initial impression stayed true for the rest of my time there.

It’s a perfectly nice city. It has all the things that you would want in a European city: big beautiful churches, old buildings, winding streets, inviting squares, live music, and a good art scene. But something was lacking for me. It might have been just the sheer volume of tourists that put me off a bit. They choked the Rambla and created off-putting congestion around any site of note; That said, if you got away from those touristy bits the city felt more like a regular city. I was, of course, aware that Barcelona was one of those European cities that is overly touristy to the point where they’re trying to deter tourists from going there, but I kinda don’t get it. I understand why tourists want to go to Paris or Amsterdam or Venice, but I don’t really see the appeal of Barcelona more than any number of other European cities. Still, it’s worth seeing and I did have a nice time.

My first full day was Sunday, an I endeavoured to visit the key sites, which included visiting a couple of famous Gaudí buildings and the Basílica de la Sagrada Família. I walked to the Casa Batlló and La Pedrera – Casa Milà. I didn’t go inside either one, but they were extremely impressive to view from the outside. It’s not my style of architecture, but I appreciated them for being beautiful and being different.

*Casa Batlló and La Pedrera – Casa Milà*

I hopped on the metro to the Sagrada Família. I was eager to see the inside of this famous church, but by the time I booked this trip all of the tickets to view the inside were sold out. This isn’t a church that you can just show up and saunter into. The only way that I could have gotten inside with this little notice was to book a guided tour lasting an hour and a half and costing approximately $150.00. While I have heard that the inside is gorgeous. I was not willing to spend that much money or that much time on this building, so I decided to just take it in from the outside. And here’s my controversial opinion. I think it’s kind of ugly. While I thought the other two Gaudí buildings that I saw were beautiful the Sagrada Família just looks like a mess to me. It is interesting, with unusual flourishes and bits of fruit sitting on top of turrets, but the overall building just looks like a mass of melted wax. Some buildings look better when you see them in person. In my opinion, this was not one of them.

I made my way over to the MACBA Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona, it was a much better experience. Not too big art gallery containing intriguing and occasionally beautiful contemporary in modern art pieces. Just as enjoyable as the art gallery itself was the neighbourhood that it was set in. I returned several times to the square just outside the art gallery in the evening as it had lots of street art, outdoor eateries, and a constant stream of skateboarders trying out different tricks. It was very lively I loved it.

I had a bite to eat and then rambled over to the Palau de la Música Catalana, a beautiful concert hall built in the early 1900s. I did pay for a ticket to go inside this buildings and it was well worth it, even at €18. I opted not to do a guided tour but just to wander around in my own, as I felt a little pressed for time. It is one of the most beautiful theatres that I’ve ever seen and even if it’s just to stop in for 10 or 15 minutes to look around, I think it’s one of the best sites if you enjoy that sort of thing.

It was getting to be evening time and so I geared up for a night of bar and restaurant hopping. I try not to drink much when I travel (if at all) because of trouble, but I think a trip to Barcelona would be a bit wasted if a person didn’t have at least a few drinks on your night out in the town. My favourite thing about Barcelona was the night. All of the restaurants had haphazard seating on the squares and into the streets where people sat around having cocktails and glasses of wine and little plates of tapas period music would spill out and everything looked so inviting. Best of all, I could smoke on any patio without any trouble.

I don’t like the idea of tapas. This is mainly because I do not like sharing food. I won’t get into the why; I just don’t like it. But tapas for one is great. It meant that I could go to a little restaurant have a tiny plate of appetizers, a drink, and a cigar and move on to another place, taking in different atmospheres along the way. It was great.

There are also countless appealing ‘hole in the wall’ bars and I had to visit at least a few of them. The best one was called Two Schmucks. And I don’t think it’s exactly a secret; while it is a small dive bar, it has been ranked one of the best bars in the world. I can see why. I loved it immediately; it had great music, it was dark, and the walls were covered with a mishmash of horror movie posters. They had regular cocktails but also a list of highly inventive ones. I ordered a tzatziki martini. I didn’t know what to expect. But I like a martini and I like to see key so why not give it a shot. The martini came and it wasn’t white or milky looking, but perfectly clear. I gingerly took a sip and was astonished. Somehow it tasted like a martini in the sense that it tasted like clean clear alcohol, but it had hints of garlic and dill and was so delicately delicious. Best of all, halfway through the martini they took my remaining martini liquid and poured it into a new frozen glass. No one has ever done this before or since in my entire life and I think it is the best martini service I’ve ever had.

The other thing that was great about sitting at this bar, was I ended up chatting with the guy sitting next to me who worked as a flight attendant from one of the major airlines. And he had no problem answering all my stupid questions. Everything from, “has anyone ever died on one of your flights,” to “do people really have sex in the washrooms,” to “how does one successfully give a small gift to the flight attendants without seeming like a creep?” It was fun and he was good-natured.

I stayed out late, and had a cigar in a late night appetizer on my way back to the hostel. It was a fun day.

This was my second of three nights in Barcelona, and I would come back to the city for a full day and night at the end of my trip, but this was really the end of my Barcelona exploration at the beginning of the trip, as the next day it was headed for my day trip to Andorra.

Andorra-Lithuania trip 2024 Asia Europe

European Hopsctoch

How I planned my trip to Barcelona, Andorra, Vilnius, Riga, & Stockholm

I had booked a trip to go to Lebanon and Syria in May 2024, and I was excited about it. The flights and hostels were booked; the itinerary was made…but then the war in Israel and Palestine spread a bit north into Lebanon. This didn’t affect my plans initially, but when some of the bombs landed in or near Beirut and some airlines cancelled their flights, I started to think twice. I wasn’t concerned about the violence affecting me per se, but I was concerned about flights being cancelled and getting stranded. Work wise, I just couldn’t afford to be stranded in anywhere. So I cancelled my bookings, and I had to book another trip with just about two weeks’ notice. I don’t relish in a last minute trip. I like to languish with travel books, maps, and blogs, researching and anticipating. As I always say, however, travel teaches one flexibility.

This new trip couldn’t be anywhere that required an advance visa or anywhere that needs a lot of pre-planning. Plus, with only two weeks out most of the flights were expensive. So I traded in my desire for adventure and decided to go for a European trip. On the plus side, this would give me an opportunity to visit a couple of new to me countries, plus revisiting some other places that I like. I found a good price on a round-trip ticket to Barcelona, and from there I would visit Andorra, with a little stop in France, I would fly to Lithuania, travel by land to Latvia, fly to Stockholm, before returning to Barcelona, via Zürich on the way. It sounded delightful.

I had been to all of these countries before except for Andorra and Lithuania. Fortunately, flights within Europe tend to be inexpensive and the trip was looking to be fairly affordable. The one thing I didn’t factor into my trip planning, and my budgeting was Taylor Swift.

Taylor Swift and the price of Hostels

I am in no way anti Taylor Swift, but I don’t really give her much thought at all, or at least I didn’t before this trip. When I arrived in Barcelona, I discovered that all of Europe was buzzing with her tour dates getting underway. Just after I arrived in Barcelona, she had a couple of dates in Paris and half of the girls staying in my dorm in Barcelona were on their way to the concert. One of them even lived in the United States and said it was cheaper for her to fly from Los Angeles to Europe and buy tickets there than it was to buy tickets in the States.

All of this meant that the price and availability of hostels in Barcelona and Stockholm were not great. Nowhere was this truer than in Stockholm. I had never been to Stockholm, but I had heard it was expensive, so when I started looking for hostel dorms and I found that they were in the $250 CDN range, I thought, “well I guess that’s just Stockholm prices,” and maybe it was a little more expensive because I was booking at the last minute. What I didn’t realize was that my three days in Stockholm corresponded exactly with Taylor Swift’s three days of concerts there. All of the accommodations were three to four times what they normally were and almost every place was full. I did pay $250 CDN a night for a rather unremarkable dorm bed in Stockholm – one that lacked even a privacy curtain, a towel, or a free breakfast. It is, to date, the most expensive hostel accommodation I’ve ever had.

*Hostel bunks in Barcelona and Stockholm, the latter (Bunk 4) was the $250/night one*

On the plus side, although I am not a ‘Swifty’, I couldn’t help but be charmed by all her fans, particularly in Stockholm, where they seemed to overtake the city but were so cute and wholesome that it was impossible for me to be irritated by them.

Anyway, that was just a blip on what otherwise was a very enjoyable trip to multiple places, starting in Barcelona…

Central America / Caribbean Nicaragua North America

Two Days in Colourful Granada

Leaving Estelí for Granada

I left Estelí, Nicaragua early on Friday morning. I left the way I came, in a private care instead of on the bus. Friday was a working day for me, and I couldn’t afford to spend half of it in transit, so I hired a driver. The trip took about 2.5 hours. Not a bargain, price-wise, but worth it

Arriving in Granada, I was immediately charmed. This was the colourful city I’d seen in pictures, and it was the city in which I had planned to spend my entire week, before the lure of cigars and tobacco farms took me to Estelí. We arrived in Granada at about 8:00 AM. I would leave two days later. Two days was enough time in Granada.

*main square as seen from my hostel window*

The Poshest of Hostels

I was staying at the Selina Hostel (since changed its name to Socialtel Granada); it was an absolute delight. It’s one of those fancy hostels that feels more like a hotel than than it does just a regular hostel (a poshtel). It is pricier, but you can’t argue with the quality. I had booked a private room, and it was gorgeous. The common areas were full of people hanging out, drinking smoothies and beer, planning day trips to volcanoes, and chit chatting in aesthetically appealing surroundings. As a side note, I did plan to do a day trip to a volcano but it just wasn’t happening while I was there due to volcano activity so I just hung out in the town.

I spent Friday morning sitting on the patio in front of the hostel having a cigar and working on my laptop. With work done, I went out to explore for the weekend.

Wandering Granada

Grenada is one of those places that doesn’t really have tourist attractions per se, it’s really that the city itself is the attraction. It is a gorgeous Spanish colonial town with the oldest architecture dating back nearly 500 years. The buildings are brightly painted, and the streets are cobblestoned. In the centre is a leafy square presided over by a tall bright yellow church.

I know, it’s a lot of photos, but its is just so pretty

It has an active street life, with markets, people playing dominoes, food and drink vendors, add a selection of horses and donkeys.

The central market was an explosion of colours, smells, and fruity goodness.

It is an ideal place for wandering with no destination.

The only downside to Grenada was that it was blisteringly hot and humid. It was hot in Estelí but in a comfortable sort of way. It was so hot when I was in Granada in February that at certain points I felt like I couldn’t see. No matter, the city had an ample assortment of charming cafes and breezy courtyards that I could sit in to take respite from the heat and drink a refreshing beverage or a coffee.

And that’s basically what I did in Granada: I wandered around, I looked at buildings, I took pictures, and I had and I had tasty (non-alcoholic) beverages.

*smoothies, coffee, and a virgin passion fruit colada*

One of the great things about being Granada was that there was a variety of food. It reminded me a lot of Antigua, Guatemala in the sense that it really does cater to tourists and so it has charming cafes with good assortments of vegetarian food. I was in heaven I was able to have vegetarian dishes and nice salads without getting sick. The downside of this was Granada is not particularly cheap. You’re going to pay almost Canadian prices for the pleasures of those lovely cafes. But I was fine with it.

Smoking Cigars in Granada

Of course I smoked cigars. There was one small cigar factory in Granada: Dona Elba. It’s tiny, as their main factory is in Estelí, but there were people in there rolling cigars and cigars were for sale. I made a point of going there and tried a couple of their locally rolled cigars, each of which was only OK. I sat in a rocking chair in their shop area and smoked this very unfortunately named cigar when I was joined by the tired wife of a cigar curious tourist who sat down to talk to me. It was one of those conversations that started normal but then took a turn when this woman, who was from America, began telling me about her COVID conspiracy theories and how Muslims are ruining Europe. Awkward. I obviously don’t agree with her theories and there’s just no point in debating some people. At that point I miss being in Estelí where almost no one spoke English.

*A nice little factory with unremarkable (and one unfortunately named) cigars*

One other note on cigars, don’t buy any here unless it is from a proper cigars store (and even then be careful); Granada was full of egregious fake cigars – not just fake Cubans, but fake non-Cubans, like Padron, Fuente. Nasty looking things, some with beetle holes.

In the evenings I sat outside enjoying the less hot air and smoking cigars, well the people from the nearby hostels marauded about in search of drinks.

It was all perfectly pleasant and was an excellent end to my time in Nicaragua.

Heading Home

I flew home via Mexico City where I had a ten-hour overnight layover. Normally, when flying through Mexico City I’ll go into the city, but I had no desire to go in the middle of the night sleep couple hours and come back to the airport, so I booked a ‘room’ at a little pod hostel just outside of the airport. (izZzleep.) Literally outside the door of the airport and up a flight of stairs. It was my first time staying in one of these little space age pods and I loved it. Great use of my time and money.

Nicaragua was a success I felt fulfilled and rejuvenated.

My next trip would keep me in the Americas: a short jaunt to southern California.

Central America / Caribbean Nicaragua North America

At Home with Plasencia Cigars in Estelí, Nicaragua

After Las Villas and Rocky Patel, my next cigar factory visit was Plasencia. I was delighted. I had only learned of Plasencia the previous year when I was working in Antigua, Guatemala. The proprietors of the best lounge in Antigua (Antigua Cigars) told me the story of the Plasencia family and introduced me to their cigars. They have been in regular rotation for me ever since.

The Plasencia family started out in the industry in the mid 1800s as tobacco farmers in Cuba after the Plasencia patriarch immigrated there from the Canary Islands. They left during he revolution in the early 1960s and moved their operation to Nicaragua. In the 1970s the turbulence in Nicaragua caused them to move to Honduras where they started making cigars for other brands. In the 1990s they returned to Nicaragua and became one the of the most famous and prolific growers and producers (still for other grands) of the cigars outside of Cuba. In 2017, the family decided to start producing cigars under their own name and the Plasencia brand of cigars was born. They are excellent cigars, the Alma Fuerte being my favourite.

I love how they have been in the business for generations and how they have innovated to grow certified organic tobacco and developed way to grow the crops with less water. They are committed to environmental practices. I should say here that no was is paying or asking me to write this. I’m just a fan.

So I was delighted when I was invited to tour the Plasencia factory in Estelí.

I walked to the factory from my hotel. Long and hot, but manageable. I didn’t want to deal with taxis.

I entered the impressive yellow building and was met with my host.

He took me on a tour of the factory. I won’t go through the steps involved or how this experience enlivened my already deep-rooted passion for cigars, as I have done that in the Las Villas and Rocky Patel posts. I was walked through the same, incredible process of cigar fermentation, rolling, aging, testing, and finishing. All by hand, as it has been done for centuries.

The family’s history is told in a series of photos and the story displayed on a wall after entering the building.

A few things surprised me about Plasencia. It isn’t just a company where these people work; they pride themselves on being a responsible employer. (Take note, corporations.) They pay a good wage, they provide health care onsite, they provide free pre-school for the children of workers, they grow food and use it to supply meals to their workers…it was apparent that this is a company that cares. I usually cringe when I hear an employer calling its workplace a family, but there was a true sense of that here. The walls were lined with quotes from writers and thinkers like Emerson and there were displays about the Plasencia baseball team and about the importance of mental health. It was impressive, and not what I expected. They even make a point of employing blind people in certain jobs where the task can be done by touch. I came in as a fan of the cigars and left as a fan of that and their corporate culture.

The tour ended in their onsite cigar lounge / café / bar, where I had a coffee and cigars and continued to chat with my host.

I left, with a nice gift bag, and my host insisted on driving my back to my hotel. (He thought it was crazy I had walked.) When he turned on his truck, 1980s Madonna blasted from the speakers. “The radio?” I asked curiously. “No. It is a CD,” he replied and said how much he liked Madonna. Full of surprises, down to the final moments.

These three cigar factory visits were incredible. I felt even more zealous about this thing that I love and that has, truly, shaped so much of my life. It was also a reminder of the kindness and generosity of cigar people and how, despite being strangers, we connect over this shared passion.

What a great way to end my week in Estelí. The next day I would leave Estelí for Granada.

Central America / Caribbean Nicaragua North America

Farm to Factory with Rocky Patel

During my week in Estelí, Nicaragua, and the day after my visit to the Las Villas cigar factory I had the privilege of visiting the Rocky Patel farm and factory.

Rocky Patel is a brand started in the mid 90s by a Hollywood lawyer named Rakesh “Rocky” Patel who became passionate about cigars and sold his law practice to start a cigar company. This is a story that is close to my heart. Today Rocky Patel is one of the best known non Cuban brands in the world.

Factory

The people at Rocky Patel were unbelievably generous with their time. I was met by a representative of the company, a girl named Gissell who spoke excellent English, and she took me on a tour of the factory. She walked me through the entire process from rolling the cigars to aging them, banding to boxing them. I was familiar with the process, and it was fresh in my mind for having visited the factory yesterday, but I appreciated seeing how the Rocky Patel factory operates.

It was a big operation, but like all cigar factories, things are pretty simple. It’s a room with long wooden tables, divided into sections, kind of like cubicles in a library, and a person sits at each one and does their job. There’s the person who bunches the tobacco, creating the blend, the person who rolls the tobacco, the person who takes the cigars and puts them into a wooden cigar press to help them hold their shape, the person who applies the wrapper (which is the outside leaf), and the person who takes each cigar and puts it into a little machine that puffs air through it to check to see if it is rolled correctly. If the cigar is rolled too tight you can’t smoke it easily, and if the cigar is rolled to loosely it burns too quickly and too hot. The man who does the testing keeps track of whose cigars or not meeting the standard.

rollers

We also visited the room where women de-vein the tobacco leaves, the and the room where men are sorting the cigar leaves into bundles to make the blends, weighing them, and keeping the records. Everything is done by hand. Pen and paper.

The factories are warm. There are fans but you can’t have air conditioning blowing on the tobacco. Tobacco is a sensitive product that needs to be kept warm, but not too warm; and humid but not too humid.

The atmosphere of the room is nice. People seem to be having a good time, or as much as you can while working. A lot of them have headphones in but others are chatting with each other as they roll cigars, but they are working quickly. A perfect marriage of speed and precision is desirable. I tried rolling a cigar once and I know first-hand that it is not as easy as they make it look.

After the cigars are rolled, they are aged in bundles on shelves for anywhere from a few months to up to a year before they are boxed and sold.

When it is time for the cigars to be boxed, there is someone whose job it is to separate the cigars into different shades of brown, to ensure that when you buy a box of cigars there is a uniform colour of the cigars in the box. This is purely for aesthetics. The lighter coloured cigars go with the lighter coloured cigars and the darker with the darker coloured cigars. In Cuba, it is said that they separate the cigars into 40 different shades of brown. I don’t know if that’s accurate or if it’s true in Estelí, but the man who was doing the colour organizing certainly had a lot of different shades of brown on the table in front of him.

The cigars are banded, again, by hand, and put into boxes for distribution and sale.

Just as with the day before, I felt amazed by the level of work that goes into making each cigar and how little it has changed over the centuries.

When the tour of the factory was finished, we were joined by Luis, a former lawyer himself, and we took a drive out to the farm.

Farm

This was a new experience for me. I had visited a tobacco farm in Cuba, but at the time the plants had been harvested so it wasn’t much to see. Being at the Rocky Patel farm in Estelí, I was giddy with excitement. It was stunning. The header image on this post is a view of the field. Bright green plants against a clear blue sky. It looked like heaven.

I wandered to the fields and took pictures and gently caressed leaves like a real weirdo.

Another thing I hadn’t seen before, was tobacco flowers. These are the flowers that grow on the tobacco plant. They’re pink! I had no idea.

Right near the fields, were large barns where the tobacco goes after it’s harvested.

Once the leaves are harvested, they go into the barn where they are hung on wooden rods high up into the barns rafters. When they’re hung up, they’re green and as they dry, they turn brown. The racks of leaves are rotated to ensure that they all get uniform humidity and exposure. As with every other aspect of cigar production, this is all done by hand. Women string the tobacco leaves into long garlands; men take the tobacco leaf garlands up into the rafters and hang them over the wooden beams. The barn smells incredible.

They told me that once a year they have fancy dinners in the barn where they bring in a large table and eat and drink surrounded by tobacco. I tried unsuccessfully to wrangle an invitation.

We then visited the building where the tobacco was put into, effectively, big piles, where it ferments for up to a year. The tobacco must be kept at a very stable state of humidity and temperature, and it is monitored constantly.

Finally, and a bit out of sequence, we visited the greenhouses where the little tobacco seedlings start their lives. Future cigars. I have never been so excited to visit a nursery.

The people at Rocky Patel were so wonderful. Explaining to me the entire process, tolerating my ceaseless enthusiasm, and not laughing too hard at me when I tripped walking in the field and landed in a muddy creek. At the end of the visit, they gave me a small gift box with an assortment of their cigars. There’s no people like cigar people.

*me, Gissell, and Luis. I didn’t get the pink shirt memo*.

I felt so lucky to have been able to visit these two factories. An at the time that I visited Rocky Patel I thought that it would be the second of two factory visits that I would make; but that afternoon I got an e-mail arranging for me to visit Plasencia the next day, which would be my final day in Estelí.

Central America / Caribbean Nicaragua North America

Visiting Las Villas Cigar Factory in Estelí

In was in Estelí, Nicaragua remote working for a week and, as it is the cigar production centre of Nicaragua, I had reached out (with the help of a Spanish speaking colleague) to some factories to arrange tours to Las Villas, Rocky Patel, and Plasencia. This led to one of the more unique and personal experiences I have had, combining two of my passions: travel and cigars.

The first of the factories that I visited in Estelí was Las Villas. This wasn’t a factory or brand that I was familiar with, but they were the first to extend an invitation so happily accepted.

I walked there from my hotel. It took a little less than half an hour but the heat made it feel longer. Along the walk I passed other buildings that had cigar logos on the outside. These were not ones that I was familiar with and appeared to be small operations. Occasionally I walked past a building that had no signage outside whatsoever but I could hear voices and smell tobacco through the cracks in the windows. I don’t mean that I could smell smoke from tobacco I meant that I could smell raw tobacco, and it was apparent to me that these were also small rolling operations. There are entire streets in Estelí that smell like tobacco, or like heaven depending on your perspective.

*other, random factories passed en route*

I walked down some unpaved back roads in a residential neighbourhood and passed a couple of donkeys when I found my destination. Behind the security gate was a small, new-looking building containing the cigar factory.

I was met by a fellow who gave me a tour of the factory, I think because his English was the best of the people on staff. And I feel like a jerk because I wrote down the names of the people that I met but I lost the paper and so I don’t remember his name, but this was him and me in the picture enjoying a cigar.

He took me through the Las Villas where people were fermenting tobacco, rolling cigars, bundling and aging them. This glimpse into cigar production was truly fascinating. I had visited factories previously in Miami and Cuba, but it was still thrilling to see. Something about cigars that not many people realize unless you know cigars is how many steps it takes to make a cigar from when you plant the seed to when you box them up. They go through a long and intricate process of growing, harvesting, aging, fermenting, sorting, rolling, testing, aging some more, banding, and boxing. It is said that a cigar passes through 200 hands on its way to being ready to smoke. It’s one of those rare items that still, today, is made entirely by hand. I find it kind of moving to see all of these people handcrafting this thing that I enjoy so much. I don’t think I take it for granted, but it is very special to see first hand all of the effort that goes into a cigar.

My guide showed me around the factory and took me into the rooms where they were aging tobacco. He gave me a cigar to sample which was excellent (and thankfully it was excellent, because I had never had these cigars before and it would have been an awkward experience if the cigars were bad).

Cigars in various forms. The ones in the middle at the ‘By the Book’.
The little oily pigtail ones on the end are a custom roll for a buyer.

After the tour I was taken into the office of the owner of the company and his brother. Guillermo Pena Jr. Is the owner of Las Villas and of course I forget his brother’s name because I lost the little piece of paper where I wrote it down. The brother didn’t speak English, but Guillermo did. He told me the story of how he and his brother grew up in Cuba and worked as cigar rollers there before escaping to Miami in the early 2000s. They started working initially at cigar factories in Miami before going out on their own to create their own cigars. They eventually created a factory in Estelí, Nicaragua and started rolling cigars for other brands as well as creating their own. They started with eight rollers and today they have over 200. While I was there, I tried a Las Villas cigar called By The Book, which came in a cigar box that looked like a book. It was excellent. Full bodied, leathery, earthy, with a hint of natural sweetness, and a perfect construction in an oily wrapper. It was a truly amazing experience to be sitting in this office on the leather sofa in the middle of a cigar factory in the middle of Nicaragua talking about cigars with these men. bonded over our mutual passion.

I left feeling elated. It was such a unique experience – but it was only the first of three.

The next day I would visit Rocky Patel and tour both the farm and factory.

Central America / Caribbean Nicaragua North America

Tobacco Town: A Week in Estelí, Nicaragua

Workation

Anyone who’s followed me or knows me in person knows that I love cigars. I won’t go into my personal history with cigars, which has been a life-changing passion going back to about 1997; that is another story for a different blog. When I had an opportunity to do a one week ‘workation’ in 2024, it was my passion for the leaf that took me to Nicaragua. For the last couple of years, I can take one week per year and work remotely in addition to my annual paid time off. The first year I went to Guatemala, and this (second) time to Nicaragua. It’s essential that I do the workation in a time zone that roughly lines up with Vancouver’s. I’ll probably explore most of Central America this way.

But where in Nicaragua? Granada was the obvious choice, as it is so charming, but I decided to go to a less picturesque destination: Estelí.

Estelí is not a tourist destination; It is a regular working town in central Nicaragua that is famous for growing some of the best tobacco in Central America. At least half of the population of Estelí works in the cigar industry in one way or another. I couldn’t get an accurate count on how many cigar farms or factories there were in the area. I managed to find about 30 online but I was told that there was probably twice as many.

Estelí seemed like a good choice. It’s famous for producing something that I love and, aside from that, it doesn’t really have any other sights or attractions that would distract me from my work. (There are some nearby hikes, but that’s it.)

Arrival in Nicaragua

I flew into Managua and then had to make my way to Estelí. Managua is the closest airport to Estelí and the only way there is by vehicle. There are buses, but they’re slow. I was arriving in Estelí from Vancouver via Mexico City, where I had spent the night, so by the time I would arrive in Nicaragua it would be Saturday afternoon and I wanted to arrive in Estelí before it got dark. So I arranged for a car.

I found a driver online – Mr. Ow of Mr Ow Nica Travel – who offers driving services around the country and asked him if he would make this drive for me. He said he would. I wholly recommend him he was an excellent driver and very professional. It was also nice to make the drive from Managua to Estelí in a car so that I could enjoy the scenery as well as ask Mr. Ow about life in Nicaragua. It wasn’t a super picturesque drive, but it was nice to see some fields of green and donkeys pulling carts.

Growing up, the only time I heard anything about Nicaragua was on the news, and it was always violence and political upheaval, and American-born news reporters with no Spanish accent suddenly pronouncing the name Nicaragua as though they were raised in the heart of Managua. (“Nee-Ka-rrrá-Gua”)

While it’s a bit of a stereotype from Nicaragua it’s also true that it was violent and had political upheaval and lots of American political meddling. The country was under a series of dictatorships and revolutions from the late 1930s until the 90s (Somoza, Sandinistas, Contras), with a war and a devastating earthquake on top of it all. In the 1990s, when it started to re-establish itself as a stable state, it was decimated by terrible hurricanes. It’s only really since about the mid 2000s that it’s got on its feet. Or did it?

While there isn’t any active war, Nicaragua struggles with democracy and dictatorships to this day. Political participation is limited, and the current president has been in power for 23 years across two different periods. During his second period, he removed term limits from the constitution and recently made his wife vice president. When I am visiting countries with tricky governments, I try not to ask people too much about the local politics for fear that they or I get in trouble. To the extent that locals talked about politics with me on this trip they didn’t seem happy with the system and spoke about it in hushed tones.

Nicaragua is one of the safer countries in Central America, but it’s still not considered safe. I felt completely safe the entire time that I was there, but I don’t know if that’s a universal experience.

Estelí

We got to Estelí, it also wasn’t that picturesque, but it would be my home for the next week.

Estelí has a population of approximately 120,000. I find that shocking because it felt like a small town, but I gather that I was staying in the centre and that there is more of the city perhaps spread out. The area that I stayed in felt old-ish. There were some cobblestone-type streets and single-story colonial buildings painted in bright colours and at least one square with an old churches.

It looks lovely right? And it was pretty. Not as pretty as Antigua or Granada, but it did have many of the elements of an attractive Central American colonial town. What it didn’t have was things catering to tourists. On one hand this was great; I felt like Estelí was a completely authentic experience. On the other hand, it wasn’t an easy place to spend a week in. Very few people spoke English, so I had to rely on my rudimentary Spanish. Finding vegetarian food was almost impossible. Most nights I would ask people to make me a bean and vegetable burrito. And one night I just had a virgin piña colada and a cigar for dinner. There wasn’t a plethora of cute little cafes with free Wi-Fi like you would have in a more touristy place like Antigua, but there were some. There was one very picturesque little cafe (Coffee Lovers Estelí) that did have free Wi-Fi and wasn’t too far from my hotel and there was a place selling smoothies and there were and there were one or two patios to sit on.

Sometimes when I drive through countries from one destination to another I will pass by a town or small city of no particular note and I’ll wonder what life is like in a place like that; just a regular town with no real attractions. Estelí was that experience. People got up and they went to work and they hung out in the park in the evening when it was hot and then they went home. Men walked around wearing cowboy hats and cowboy boots and jeans and nobody seemed particularly interested in displaying the sights or history of their town. Every morning, a siren went off at about 5:00 AM signalling to people that it is time to start work. I used this as my signal that I should do likewise.

I stayed the Hotel Los Arcos, which is probably the nicest hotel in the centre of the city and I booked myself into the biggest room. I figured, since I’m going to be there doing work, I may as well have some space. It wasn’t ideal for work, lacking any sort of a desk or table. I spent most of my working days sitting on a wooden bench working at a coffee table in the common areas, smoking cigars. That was great, cigar-wise. The place was very cigar friendly. And while the staff didn’t speak a word of English, they were very kind and we exchanged small conversations.

*My hotel and, on the right, where I worked most days*

I did get violently ill for about out two days during my time in Estelí following an attempt to eat a salad ordered from a takeout window at a taco shop. I think that was a mistake. And that put a bit of a damper on things, but I was still able to tend to my work and enjoy my cigars.

And the cigar is really where the highlight of Estelí. I could smoke anywhere, which was a treat, but more importantly I had arranged to visit some farms and factories while I was there. It is possible to arrange for a tour in some cases to visit certain farms and factories there, but they generally don’t do them for individuals. Fortunately, my law firm is one of the sponsors of the Caribbean Cigar Celebration, an annual cigar event in Vancouver, and I used that as my way two reach out to these places. Only three factories got back to me, but that was enough. While I was there, I visited Las Villas, Rocky Patel, and Plasencia. I know that if you don’t know anything about cigars these names won’t mean anything to you, and that’s okay. I will write separate posts about these visits so they’re easy for people to skip if they’re not interested. But for me it was thrilling and one of the more unique trips that I’ve had.

My days in Estelí, apart from visiting farms and factories, were spent with a morning stroll, an eight or so hours of work, and an evening out for dinner, another walk, and a cigar, seeing who I could meet and what I could see along the way. Not exciting, but pleasant.

Would I recommend that people go to Estelí? Not unless you are a huge cigar fan and very excited to learn more about the process of growing cultivating and rolling cigars. Otherwise carry on to Granada or one of the other more touristy regions of Nicaragua.

Moving On

I did go to Grenada on my last weekend, and it was excellent and provided me with all the touristy comforts that Estelí lacked, but the highlight was visiting those tobacco farms and cigar factories, which reaffirmed and revitalized my passion for cigars.

Choose your own adventure! Want to Read about my visits to Las Villas, Rocky Patel, and Plasencia? Click your choice. Want to jump ahead to picturesque Granada? Click here.

Algiers-Nice-Athens 2024 Europe Greece

Athenian Odyssey – Day 3 of 3

My third day in Athens after my excellent visit to the Acropolis, was kind of a freebie. I had already done all the things that were most important to me in visiting the city, so I decided to improvise day three. I had breakfast at my hostel and then I went out walking. I visited a flea market. I’m not sure if it was the Monastiraki flea market or someplace else, but it was fun to look around. I like free markets in foreign cities; they feel like impromptu, free museums.

Morning Stuff

I stopped and had a coffee on the edge of the flea market. I decided to try a ‘frappé’; this is a Greek coffee made with instant coffee whisked together with cold water and sugar to make sort of a frothy cold coffee drink. I’m glad I tried it, but I don’t need to have it again. I don’t like cold coffee or sugar in my coffee so it wasn’t really for me and I knew that going in. It looked pretty though.

The Plaka

I decided to wander over to the Plaka. I understand that it is a famous area in Athens for tourists and so I went to look around. It has pretty streets and historical sites, but I thought it was a bit dull. I think it would be a lovely place to have a meal as there seem to be many restaurants at beautiful patios but of that I didn’t find it very interesting; lots of souvenir shops and not a lot of character, I thought, although it did have some lovely ruins.

Anafiotika

If I ever unironically use the phrase “hidden gem” to describe something, you’re welcome to throw an ouzo in my face, Anafiotika comes close. Anafiotika Is a little neighbourhood above the Plaka that wasn’t on my radar having read through guidebooks and travel blogs, but I can’t exactly say that it’s hidden because they have a sign up there warning tourists to be respectful of the neighbours. It is absolutely stunning, and one of the best things that I did in Athens. I had to use Google maps to figure out how to get to Anafiotika, but once I found the street that led to the stairs that led to a graffiti covered passageway, I was in the Anafiotika.

What makes it so special? It doesn’t look like you’re in Athens at all. It looks like you’re on one of the Greek islands. I have a feeling that it might get busier later in the day, but I was there early in the morning, and I didn’t see anybody else as I was walking around. The streets – if you can call them streets, they’re basically just pedestrian walkways – are lined with bright, white houses in the Cycladic architecture style, often painted with blue trim. Vines of colourful bougainvillea and large green tropical looking leaves peek over the top of walls and around corners. It is unbelievably picturesque, and yet, the pictures don’t do it justice. It just felt so peaceful; like I had been transported to one of the Greek islands as I crept around in silence, trying not to disturb anyone. There aren’t any coffee shops or restaurants or souvenir shops there; it’s just a residential neighbourhood that happens to be beautiful. It is lovely, and you absolutely should visit it if you were there, I only hope that it doesn’t become overrun with people doing professional Instagram shots because that would be a shame and would really ruin it for everyone else.

I descended without seeing another person.

From there I wandered back down to the Plaka and I stopped and had lunch, before walking away from the Plaka. On my walk I passed buskers, visited a few more churches, and made a point of seeking out the Passageway of the Merchants (aka Stoa Emporon). It is very interesting art installation that exists in old alleyway (or ‘stoa’) of now abandoned shops, and hung and hung from the ceiling are old signs for Athenian businesses, clustered together on the roof. If you didn’t know it was an art exhibit you would just think it was a very confusing passageway, It’s pretty cool and worth checking out.

*Passageway of the Merchants (aka Stoa Emporon)*

Exarcheia

I sat down and had a coffee and tried to decide what to do next period I looked on my map and was reading about different areas when I found Exarcheia. Exarcheia is a neighbourhood in Athens known for artists and anarchists, protesters and punk rock. It sounded great.

It was for many years a neighbourhood where many immigrants from the islands lived, but when the university opened several departments there, it became home to intellectuals, artists, and other people on the fringes. It was the location of the Athens Polytechnic uprising against the military government in 1973 in which at least 40 people were killed by the military and was one of the events that led to the fall of the junta the following year. In 2008 the killing of a 15 boy, Alexandros Grigoropoulos, by the police in Exarcheia again sparked massive protests.

*protest graffiti and Alexandros Grigoropoulos*

Today it is maybe the best place in Athens to go take in street art and graffiti. I’m making the distinction there because it does have some beautiful murals as well as graffiti with tags and statements of protest and opposition to the government, the police, capitalism, and tourism.

But it’s not all protest and, it’s also an excellent place to take in cool small local shops, cafes, galleries, and cinema. I was there during the day, so I mostly just wandered around and stopped and had a coffee. I had read that the neighbourhood was dangerous, but it certainly didn’t feel that way, I mean look at this street.

Visiting Exarcheia really gave me the sense that there’s so much more to Athens than I would be able to visit in my three days. There are lots of cool hidden pockets that I wouldn’t have a chance to see, but I would be happy to go back.

Concluding Athens

I finished off my day back in the neighbourhood of Psyrri, near my hostel. I had an obscenely early flight, so I just had a dinner and cigar cap off my time in Athens. Is had been an excellent and culturally diverse trip to Algiers, Nice, Monaco, and Athens. Three new-to-me countries and four great experiences.

In just a few weeks I would head to Nicaragua.

Wandering North

Tag: solo travel

Return to Riga

Vilnius: It’s Pretty Amazing

Arrival in Vilnius

Wandering Vilnius

Užupis

Back across the River…

Smoking Cigars in Vilnius

Barcelona Beginnings

European Hopsctoch

How I planned my trip to Barcelona, Andorra, Vilnius, Riga, & Stockholm

Taylor Swift and the price of Hostels

Two Days in Colourful Granada

Leaving Estelí for Granada

The Poshest of Hostels

Wandering Granada

Smoking Cigars in Granada

Heading Home

At Home with Plasencia Cigars in Estelí, Nicaragua

Farm to Factory with Rocky Patel

Factory

Farm

Visiting Las Villas Cigar Factory in Estelí

Tobacco Town: A Week in Estelí, Nicaragua

Workation

Arrival in Nicaragua

Estelí

Moving On

Athenian Odyssey – Day 3 of 3

Morning Stuff

The Plaka

Anafiotika

Exarcheia

Concluding Athens