Valle De Vinales Cuba

Vinales Valley: Cuba’s Best Looking Place That Doesn’t Try Hard to Be

The Vinales Valley is a UNESCO World Heritage Site in western Cuba’s Pinar del Rio province, about 175km west of Havana. The valley is defined by mogotes – flat-topped limestone hills that rise 200-300 metres from the valley floor in shapes that look vaguely implausible, as if someone cut a cliff at right angles and set it in the middle of farmland. The land between them grows the finest tobacco in Cuba in red clay soil that turns extraordinary colours at dusk. This is the tobacco used in the best Havana cigars, and walking past the fields in the morning when the plants are being worked is a reminder that most luxury products start with manual labour in hot weather.

The valley is genuinely beautiful without being managed or performed at you, which is rarer in Cuban tourism than it should be.

The Town

Viñales town is small enough to walk across in 20 minutes. The main street (Salvador Cisneros) has a park with benches, a church, a bar selling rum cocktails for 50-80 CUP, and a row of casas particulares. The town operates largely on domestic Cuban prices for ordinary things. A meal at a paladar (private restaurant) runs 300-600 CUP per person. The wifi park in the central square is where locals gather in the evenings; internet access is via ETECSA cards from the nearby telecom office.

The Casa de la Cultura at the end of the main street holds musical events on Friday and Saturday evenings with no entry charge.

The Valley

The Mural de la Prehistoria is a 120-metre fresco painted directly on a mogote cliff face by artist Leovigildo Gonzalez starting in 1959, depicting prehistoric life forms. It is either an audacious piece of outdoor art or a garish intrusion on a beautiful landscape – the debate is genuine and both sides have merit. Entry costs 5 CUP. Worth seeing, if only to form your own opinion.

The Valle de San Vicente, accessed by a dirt road east of town, has less tourist traffic and more isolated tobacco farms. Hiring a horse for a half-day through your casa particular costs $15-25 USD and gives access to parts of the valley that are genuinely difficult to reach on foot.

The Cueva del Indio, a natural river cave with a boat passage through part of it, costs 5 CUP to enter. The cave is kitschy in a pleasant way; the boat ride through the underground river section is more fun than the entry price suggests.

Tobacco Farms

Walking up to any working farm and asking to see the drying shed will, in most cases, result in a tour and a hand-rolled cigar pressed upon you. Farm cigars cost significantly less than anything sold in Havana’s official outlets and are rolled from the same valley tobacco. A box of 25 from a reliable farm runs $10-25 USD. They are not from Cohiba’s factory regardless of what anyone tells you, but they are made by skilled hands from genuinely good leaf.

Where to Eat and Drink

Casa de Don Tomás on the main street does solid ropa vieja (braised shredded beef) and black beans and rice for 400-600 CUP per plate. Balcón del Valle, slightly outside town, is the recommended spot for sundown cocktails with a panoramic valley view; rum and honey cocktails run 80-120 CUP, and the view is as good as the valley produces.

Getting There

Vistabus and Cubacar operate bus services from Havana’s Parque Central to Viñales, departing twice daily. The fare is $12-15 USD per person each way over 3-3.5 hours. Shared taxis (collectivos) from the outskirts of Havana’s Old Town run faster and cost $15-25 per person.

Dry season (November through April) is the best time to visit. The rest of the year is extremely humid and rainy, though the valley looks different and in some ways more dramatic when mist sits in the mogote hollows.