Canadian World Traveller

Viñales, Pinar del Rio, Cuba
Article and photography by Steve Gillick
Aday trip to Viñales in Pinar del Rio,
deserves a place on the top ten list of
things to see and do in Cuba. From
Havana, the 2 ½ hour drive west provides a
window into rural Cuba where famers ride
horses, oxen pull wooden carts, and
Barrigona Palm trees, also known as Big Belly
Palms, dot the countryside.
But as you get closer to the Province of Pinar
del Rio (named after the Pine Trees along the
(River) Rio Guamá), the scenery intensifies.
The red earth, the green vegetation, the Karst
mountains (the Sierra do los Órganos), and
small limestone hills known as mogotes, combine
to form a magical landscape, so much
so that UNESCO declared the Viñales Valley a
World Heritage site in 1999.
And one of the most impressive panoramas of
this photogenic scenery can be captured from
the viewing platform just outside the Hotel Los
Jazmines, a visually stunning, pink painted
property.
With tobacco being the main cash crop in this
area, a visit to Casa del Vaguero reveals how
tobacco leaves are dried. Just look for the
building with a sign that says “Ojo…no
fumar!”, basically, ‘pay attention to this…no
smoking’. There is also a restaurant/souvenir
shop on the premises where cigar-rolling
demonstrations take place. One of the wall
murals painted by local artists and entitled
‘The Magic of Dreaming’, celebrates the harmony
between the people who work the land,
and nature, with depictions of singing snails,
colorful birds, musical instruments, mountains
and tobacco leaves.
Down the road a short distance is the limestone
Ceuva del Indio (Indian Cave), in which
the Guanajatabey people lived many centuries
ago. Today it’s a tourist attraction where
visitors wander, duck and squeeze their way
through lit passageways in the cave before
arriving at the boat dock. Then they travel a
short distance by boat on the San Juan River
as a guide points out imaginative shapes in
the stalactites, stalagmites and on the cave
roof and walls (a seahorse, a human skull
etc.).
But probably the most famous attraction in
this area is the Mural de la Prehistoria which
occupies the entire side of a mountain at 80
meters high and 120 meters in length. The
mural portrays the life of the first Cuba inhabitants,
featuring giant snails, human figures
and dinosaurs, and was completed in four
years by Leovigildo González Morillo, a follower
of Mexican artist Diego Rivera.
And then there is the town of Viñales itself. We
stopped for refreshments at the Hotel Central
Viñales and ended up falling in love with the
town’s main street of one-story wooden houses,
restaurants and shops, as well as the
beautiful small church, the Iglesia del
Sagrado Corazon de Jesus, in the equally
small town square.
A visit to Viñales can be a full day trip or a
multi-day retreat. For travelers looking to
escape from the larger cities and the beach
crowds, this makes for a perfect getaway.
www.gocuba.ca