Once we hit that dirt road, travel slowed considerably.  We crept along, and finally took our second scheduled rest break, at a place Erick called "El Dos"--a little town?  Not sure.  We parked at this restaurant...
which had two other large busses and several tour vans already there.  I didn't even try for coffee, just got in the line for the men's room. (Yes!  a line for the men's room.).  But most of us quickly found the promised treat of this stop, an old-style sugar cane press, that we'd get to try out.  Erick let us taste some of the raw cane stalk (sweet, juicy, crushing to a fiber-something mess you have to spit out).  I volunteered to be the "oxen" to turn the press, and had my big Conan the Barbarian moment, though without the muscles suddenly growning in the jump-cut editing.
Pushing wasn't too hard til they redoubled the already crushed cane stalk and fed it back through.  That slowed me down.  But we got a pitcher of juice,

a frothy slightly green-tinged liquid, which tasted sugary, and here's a surprise, kind of green.

which met with mild enthusiasm...

Well, that was exciting, but we were offered a little sip of the real purpose of that sugar cane juice, the local moonshine that it turns into.  Here's the Fresa moonshine face:

and the Cindy moonshine face (I did have to ask her to repeat it for the camera):

Our host posed with his press and his product, Steve at his side:

And then back on the bus.  12 kilometers to go.  It took over another hour.  We arrived well after 1 p.m.  But it's always worth the stops.

bob