Viñales Valley and Las Terrazas, Cuban countryside at its best.

In the Viñales Valley and Las Terrazas, you can find your inner peace and feel as if you have been brought back in time entirely. After I arrived in Havana, I planned to have a few days on my own and wanted a soft start to my journey. So, after spending the first night with a sweet pensioner doctor couple, I was heading off to Las Terrazas. Viñales Valley: I visited a bit later with the group.

Waking up in a new country

I arrived in Havana at night, so it was already dark. Therefore, it was easiest to spend the first night in Havana. I had booked through Casa Particular, a homestay. Later, I found out that Airbnb works here, but Booking.com has no hotels in Cuba. I was planning to take a local bus from Havana to Las Terrazas, but my hosts talked me out of it. They arranged for a friend to drive me to my next accommodation. I understand, they all try to find ways to make a little bit of business. It was about an hour’s drive.

Las Terrazas

The village of Las Terrazas is a small sustainable development and nature reserve. It was designated a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in 1985. The Las Terrazas project arose at the end of the sixties to recover an area that had been destroyed by the intensive cultivation of coffee in the 19th century, so much so that, in an area of 5000 hectares, millions of trees were planted, terraces were dug for cultivation, and a small town was built following guidelines that respect nature.

I was staying about 2 kilometres from the “centre”, where there was a cafe and a few “shops”. I am not normally hungry in the morning, so I never eat breakfast at home. Therefore, more often than not, I do not book stays with breakfast included. So, the first morning, I was heading off to the centre on foot. This man was passing me in his carriage and horse, so he stopped and asked if I wanted a ride. I accepted, and we drove on. A man on a motorbike stopped us; it turned out to be my host, who asked if I didn’t want breakfast. I said no thank you, but promised to have dinner that night, and breakfast the following morning.

I had two very peaceful, restful days in Las Terrazas. Very comfortable temperature in the mid twenties, and no mosquitoes, as I feared by the lake and everything. I did some hiking in the forest and went to the local cafe; unfortunately, the power was out when I was there, so she couldn’t make any regular coffee. I said, I took whatever she could offer. And since I was a tourist, she found the best she had, coffee with rum, and I, not drinking alcohol, was polite, drinking it all, and it was very strong, haha. The day after, I headed back to Havana, and it was Christmas Eve.

Viñales Valley

I visited this place quite a few days later, and with the group. I put it in this post because they have some similarities and are both on the west side of Havana. The rest of the trip was based east of Havana. Viñales Valley is maybe one of the most well-known areas in Cuba, after Havana. The Viñales valley is encircled by mountains, and its landscape is interspersed with dramatic rocky outcrops. Traditional techniques are still used for agricultural production, particularly tobacco production.

In Cuba, communal farming is quite normal, an agricultural system in which land, labour, and resources are collectively managed by a group. It ranges from small-scale, cooperative, or intentional communities to large-scale, state-run farms. In some places, you could see a group of residential blocks in the middle of some fields. This was where the communal farmers lived, and they kept the land around them. In other places, small farms operated independently and sought to be self-sufficient.

Ecological farming

The striking karst landscape of the Viñales Valley is notable for its mogotes, a series of tall, rounded hills that rise abruptly from the valley’s flat plain. Farming in Cuba is characterised by a unique transition to ecological, manual farming, without machines, petrol or fertiliser. Many farmers use horses and oxen for ploughing and transport. In the mogotes in the picture above, there was a cave going through the whole thing, and we walked through it.

Cave Valley

Viñales Valley could just as well be called Cave Valley. There are so many caves in these mogotes. Some are more touristic than others. So here the group split up. In the most popular one, you came down to an underground water, where you could be transported in a bout, and it was lit up, we were told. This led most in the group to go for this one. I went for the other option.

Swimming down inside the cave

The cave that two others and I opted for was less-visited. A local farmer, “Indiana Jones,” was going to take us there. We had been walking for about thirty minutes before we came to the entrance of the cave. From there, it was just downhill to reach the lake at the bottom. It was pitch black down there, so we had to wear a headlight. There were also some ladders we had to climb down.

When we reached the bottom, we came to the lake, and here we undressed. I know it says my phone is waterproof, but I did not bring my waterproof case, so I did not take the risk. The water was not warm, but perfectly ok for swimming. It is strange to swim in the dark, even with our headlamps. Sometimes we had to climb a bit to come to the next level, and in some places it was very narrow. Finally, we reached the end of the lake, and there was a kind of a shore. We turned off our lights, and it became completely dark and quiet. Almost scary, but an amazing experience.

Viñales Valley was a very nice place to visit. The fantastic landscape and the incredibly welcoming people. Since this is a tourist place, they have some very good restaurants there too. And, strangely enough, they were well-equipped with alternative foods. I had to leave the group one evening before they ended their journey. I was off to Santiago de Cuba.

.