Viñales: Pure relaxation in the rocking chair. Horseback riding through the Loma de la Cangreja up to the lake of Presa el Salto. Hike through tobacco plantations. El Jardin de Caridad.
Travelogue Cuba 2012 Viñales
Parque Nacional de Viñales is one of the most beautiful landscapes in Cuba and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. We spent two days here. However, if you want, you can fill a lot more time with a lot of nice things.
A first view of the landscape of Viñales. Originally, the whole landscape was situated much higher above sea level. But 100 million years ago, underground rivers ate away at the limestone, and at some point most of the cave systems that had formed collapsed. This forms today’s valley, the remaining rocks are the places where no caves had formed or nothing (yet) collapsed.
Viñales is a small and quiet town. It lives from agriculture, especially a lot of tobacco is grown here. There are more horse and ox carts on the roads than cars.
One of the first things I immediately liked in Cuba were the ubiquitous rocking chairs in all shapes and forms. Very often these are placed on a small porch right on the street. So you get to see what’s going on in the village, have a little chat with the neighbours passing by. And as a tourist in Viñales, I watched the carts, petted a dog and let the peace sink in. Imagine, we were offline for three weeks at that time!We make our first excursion into the Valle de Viñales on horseback. Once again, it’s more “being carried around” than riding. The area is quite flat, in the sun it is quite hot. In the guidebook there is another tour to Los Aquáticos, which might sound a bit nicer than our tour.The area we ride through is called Loma de la Cangreja. On these oxcarts clay or gravel is brought to the city as building material. For us this is an idyll, for the Cubans rather a consequence of the lack of resources.
The destination of our little tour is the lake Presa el Salto. Somehow we’re not drawn to the water. But I also don’t remember if there are alligators here 😉
An obligatory part of every tour at Viñales is seeing a cigar getting rolled. Well, in our case he was allowed to smoke it himself afterwards, neither Gabi nor I were interested.
The next morning we go on a guided walk in the surrounding area. Here are some pictures that give you an impression of the nature and landscape.
By the way, many of the huts you see in the landscape are used to dry tobacco leaves in.This is what it looks like from the inside.One sees a lot of vultures. I wonder if there’s an animal dying right now and the vultures are just waiting for it to die.
In the afternoon we visit El Jardin de Caridad, a garden in the town that is totally overgrown, so densely that it is hardly possible to take photos in which you can really see anything. Just go there yourself 🙂
This is a cacao fruit. The actual kakoa that we know as a drink and as a base for chocolate are the seeds of this plant. The seeds, in turn, are surrounded by a thin white layer of pulp, which has a wonderful taste. You then simply suck the seeds off and spit them out afterwards. This may be wasteful from a cocoa standpoint, but VERY tasty.
