It's late February and the fields of the Vuelta Abajo, Cuba's prime tobacco growing region, are in the throes of harvest. There's a slow, methodical pace to the harvest. Dusty, rusty trucks rumble down the region's roads with workers standing in back. Horses trot by with carts laden with freshly picked tobacco. Oxen plough picked fields, and men and women stroll through the plantations working the leaves.
Tobacco needs care and time.
Workers in the field often say that great tobacco such as this deserves to be treated with the utmost respect and attention. For centuries, the inhabitants of the Vuelta Abajo have done just that. Regardless of the changes in the economy or government, tobacco crops have been grown, harvested and processed. Here is the heart and soul of great Cuban cigars. Visiting the tobacco fields is a pilgrimage every cigar lover who travels to Cuba should make.