So our tour of Cuba’s sights finishes with all of the other sights that you will get to see between the colourful cities and the stunning beaches…the countryside of Cuba. In this part of the trip you’ll see lots of green, rivers, waterfalls and caves; things get a bit more adventurous in this blog, but not too much so as you will never be far from a good bed or refreshing dip in the sea…Cuba is an island after all.
Let’s start with the Valley of Vinales, a good place to start when leaving Havana for the first time, to head out west on the empty highways (empty apart from people running across the road and horse and carts travelling the wrong way up the fast lane!). A Unesco world heritage site that is made up of an impressive limestone karst landscape that looms over the tobacco plantations that spread across the valley. This is certainly a tourist destination, but compared to the beaches and places like Trinidad you’ll have a lot more to yourself here.
The town of Vinales itself is where we based ourselves whilst here – the town of rocking chairs 
– where we reserved our Casa with Pitin & Juana, attracted by the guide book’s description of this casa as where food is the highlight…it did not disappoint with some wonderful lobster and fish that we ate in a lovely setting together with the family, they even managed to track down a birthday cake for Matt’s birthday!
The big sights are all in the nature surrounding the town, and a great way to visit is on horseback (apart from the aches afterwards). We organised a trip through our casa and we had our early morning pickup to meet our horses – Ricky Martin and Enrique Inglesias – and to ride off into sun…it was a bit more slow and tentative than this in reality, but still good fun. Following a route along the valley, through tobacco and sugar cane fields, stopping off at a local tobacco farmer’s to see how they made local cigars and of course to buy some that we would never smoke, but looking good for the pictures!
The destination of the ride was the Cueva de Palmerito – a cave whose huge entrance lead into a tunnel that runs several hundred meters into the mountain to stop at a subterranean lake where you can take a refreshing dip in the pitch black (just don’t think about movies like jurassic park or anything like that).
Saying goodbye to our superstar horses you will still have some time to do some other smaller trips in the vicinity – the Cueva del Indio where you can wander the start of the cave yourself and then, on coming to an underground river wait around for a boat to turn up and give you a little tour of the river, we had timed things that it was pretty much us, which always makes things a bit more unique. You can also pass by the Mural de la Prehistoria a 120m long painting of dinosaurs and sea monsters…it’s big and colourful and the rest is in the eye of the beholder!
Finishing up our day with one more cave at the Gran Caverna de Santo Tomas, again just the two of us on the tour of Cuba’s largest cave system, starting with a hike up through the rocky jungle before a very nice tour of the caves for an hour and a half to see all of the caving classics of ‘mites, ‘tites, columns and pools. The lighting effects in the cave are also very well done so add to the experience.
If you are feeling a bit peckish at the end of your tour then you can pop into the local supermarket for a snack…however you might not find too much except flies, that are usually on special offer! If you come with a car and its the end of the day then you will probably be returning to Vinales with a hitchhiker…the guide, which means that you’ll get a bit more of a tour on the journey home.
Vinales is sleepy during the day, but wakes up in the evening, and you will find a place to buy streetside Pina Coladas on almost every corner and the Cultural Casa in the centre of town will have a combo on singers and dancers to help party the night away…along with young locals looking to rescue foreigners from their spouses with two left feet.
Leaving Vinales, it is a good option to detour to Cayo Jutias for some refreshing beach time (see Part III of this blog series) and then turn back eastwards towards Soroa. Soroa is more like a hamlet spread over a few kilometres, rather than a definitive town, it actually reminded Matt of parts of England – with undulating hills, greenery and flowers perfuming the surrounds, plus it is the wettest part of Cuba with more that 1300mm of rain per year!
This was our first spot that we did not pre-book accommodation, and soon Lyssa had found one of her favourite past-times of this holiday, to get out and check the casas; have a nosey around and decide if it was the place for us, even if not the visit was rewarding to check out different places. Our tip is to stick to what you want and keep searching and you’ll be rewarded with a great location such as where we finally ended up at Ser Aluiska – a beautiful home where we had our own little cottage in a flowery garden amongst a friendly family of artists.
Unfortunately we could not stay for longer, but breakfast in the garden in the morning was wonderful and conversations with a limited Spanish were still rewarding with top tips of what to see in the area – such as our next nights accommodation at Las Terazzas. In the area of Soroa you’ll find an orchid garden (which we unfortunately did not visit), the Banos Romanos (that we smelt the sulfur pools of) and the Salto de Ario Iris waterfalls, which we fortunately did visit! Here you can have a refreshing dip in the pools and get a shower under the 22m high waterfalls along with the local.
Once you have dried off you can then take a hike above the Orquideario to the Castillo de las Nuebes, it’s a bit of a trek but well worth the death defying views at the top…and you’ll even find jewelry salesman all along the route to cheer you on.
Las Terrazas is an eco village that is a day trip from Havana, but a world away and looks everything like the pristine eco-resort that the guidebooks and pamphlets had promised. Our first activity was to fly above the resort, taking Cuba’s only canopy tour; it’s all safe as you will get a full briefing, including how to stop with on hand, but omitted how to stop with a selfie stick in your hand! There are 3 zips that will carry you 800m across the resort over trees and lakes.
Further into the resort’s hills and you will come to the idyllic Banos del San Juan, picture perfect pools made up of terraced rocks that cascade down the river. You can easily spend a few hours soaking in the pools and doing a few high jumps into the pools from the surrounding rocks.
Right next to this spot was our accommodation for the evening that our hosts in Soroa had booked for us – rustic cabanas just next to the river (details here) that were raised up above the ground and provided a snug little place with all the mod cons of…electricity, fan and a mattress! Probably one of our best spots of the whole trip, where we could take a dip in the pools next door at any time we wished.
Dinner whilst you are here is a trip up to the Hotel Moka where the location was much more impressive that the food that they served. Heading back to the great outdoors for our stilted camping and you’ll get a full show from the heavens above.
Heading into the centre of the country, once you are done visiting Cienfuegos and Trinidad you can head into the Escambray mountains and to El Nicho – a nature trail that is a couple of km long and ends in the impressive El Nicho waterfalls. You’ll reach the first waterfall and it seems that you have it all to yourself, but this is because everyone is hanging out at the main waterfalls above, still there is plenty of water to go around and enjoy the falls!
As you head to Varadero you can stop off at the Rio Canimar to rent your own speed boat to zip up and down the river. Along the banks lined with gnarly mangroves in the hunt for pelicans and disrupting the solitude of the local fishermen. It’s a great couple of hours to enjoy the freedom to speed along the river at your own pace. f you like things a bit slower, then you can also rent some row boats…but lets be honest, who wants to row on a super hot day?
So that brings us to the end of our trip to Cuba, Havana, the main towns / cities, the beautiful beaches and the adventurous countryside, it has been a few years, but in writing these set of blogs we have been checking to see if things still exist and life seems to pretty much remain constant in Cuba, so hopefully when you get your chance to visit these blogs will give you a few ideas on what to do and what to see. Above all, enjoy!