Pinar del RioCuba’s garden
In one of its most pleasant moments, the 11th Habano Festival has planned a trip to the tobacco plantations of Vuelta Abajo in Pinar del Rio, home to the best black tobacco on the face of the earth and the amazing Viñales Valley, declared World Cultural Landscape by UNESCO. Its nature is so prodigious that’s also known as
The city of Pinar del Rio –roughly 80 miles from Havana– down an excellent six-lane highway. The healthy pinewoods that once grew in the surroundings of what used to be the outskirts of village’s primary core by the Guama River gave the early dwellers food for thought about the name when the Cuban provinces were founded in 1778. It’s quite easy to get started in this city. Urbanization is well laid out, people are talkative and can give directions. From the highway you drive into the province’s capital and steer down Marti Street –the burg’s Main Street among the locals. This is a reference point to move around as the street runs through the entire city and harbors such landmarks as the Milanes Theater (1847), the Guash Palace –home to the Museum of Natural Sciences– and the Francisco Donatien cigar factory or the next-door distillery that makes a liquor known as Guayabita del Pinar.
The land of the world’s best tobacco It’s in the first days of the year when visitors can make out the beauty of the tobacco plantations. The plants have grown and the green leaves paint a different picture of the countryside, with the rooftops of the curing barns and the planters’ houses jutting out, the ox yokes tied up to nearby stakes. Good tobacco grows nearly all across Pinar del Rio, but the so-called Mecca of the Plant in the territory is right in the valleys that hem in the towns of San Luis and San Juan y Martinez, a 30-minute southbound drive from the provincial capital down a good road simply called San Juan that runs through Mazon, Rio Seco and Valle, over a somewhat rugged relieve. The spectacle of the sun-grown or shade-grown tobacco plantations –covered with cheesecloth to guarantee only the faintest sunrays to beat down on the plants and make the leaves grow silkier– is a must-see. These protected sown fields, with such an aseptic resemblance, are carefully taken care of by growers, the heirs to tobacco settlers from the Canary Islands, the rest of Spain and finally from Cuba, entire families that cling to an enrooted tradition. There are some 3,000 plantations and dozens of curing barns –two main features of the province’s scenery– so easy to make out for the enormous size of their two-gable roofs and their location right in the heart of the fields.
Some paradises of Sierra del Rosario Las Terrazas is a picture-perfect rural community and the core of the Sierra del Rosario World Biosphere Reserve, brimming with plentiful rivers that invite visitors to take a swim and top-notch services. And so is Soroa, equally marked as a place jam-packed with tourist attractions, untapped natural surroundings and a crystal-clear waterfall full of allures. Both places are located at relatively short distances and are true havens for those seeking to get in direct contact with natural environments and live a heart-beating adventure in a tropical world teeming with flowers, forests and lots of birds that always add a very special touch of their own. Floral endemism peaks 11 percent, while bird species hailing from this neck of woods account for 50 percent of the total population.
On the road to Viñales From the province’s capital to the Viñales Valley viewpoint, located in the former parking lot of the Los Jazmines Hotel, any visitor must drive 16 miles down a narrow road packed with ups and downs, twists and turns that call for extreme precautions. But regardless of this small inconvenience, the scenery is absolutely different and luring. Back to the right, as soon as the city is left behind, the Aguas Claras international camping site invites trippers to take a closer look at the small pond brimming with lotuses and wading birds. A few yards ahead they’ll find the Paso Viejo dam, and all along the way there’ll be lovely rural houses painted in bright colors and roofed with Cuban-made tiles –their façades always overlooking the road– that meet the eye. Nonetheless, spend a few minutes at the viewpoint and feast your eyes on the landscape before stepping down for a grand tour around the surroundings that boast round-top hills that were formed during the Lower Jurassic Age –Cuba’s oldest geological features.
The Valley inside If you’re staying in one of the hotels of the island’s most famous valley, don’t pass up the chance to get up early in the morning, right at daybreak, and watch the magic of the quiet sunup as the day starts taking its brighter colors and the natural light beams over the valley to unearth the many green shades of the local foliage that grows there and covers the round-top hills. There’s a road that links the sightseeing spots, plus pathways that run through the forest for the enthused hikers who’d like to spend more time in contact with Mother Nature. On the right side of the road down from Los Jazmines to the Viñales town, you’ll find the Tobacco Grower’s House where you could pay for Habanos and taste the finest Cuban cuisine money can buy, let alone listen to good country music. The La Ermita Hotel is also on that same road.
World Cultural Landscape The Viñales Valley has a total surface of 30 square miles. It was declared a Protected Area by the Constitution of the Republic of Cuba on February 24, 1976. On October 10, 1978, it was declared a National Monument, and on December 1, 1999, it entered UNESCO’s list of World Cultural Landscapes as agreed in the 23rd Meeting of the World Heritage Committee. On December 14, 2001, it was declared a National Park by a resolution issued by the Council of State of the Republic of Cuba. In addition to its eye-popping round hills and numerous caves, like the 30-plus-mile-long Palmarito cavern, the place is blessed with endemic species such as rubber palms and a few oddities like the dragon tree, la bonita de la sierra and the round hill palm. The location is also home to an assortment of amphibious species and reptiles, and it’s the kingdom of the nightingale, the hummingbird and the Cuban finch.
The town of Viñales It was back in 1607 when the first residents settled down here. Mostly involved in the growing of fruits, root vegetables, as well as to stockbreeding and the raising of pigs, their legacy was a typical hamlet of inner Cuba, yet with clear-cut architectural coherence all along main street –called locally the Salvador Cisneros Betancourt Avenue, one of the most outstanding freedom fighter of the 19th century. The pillar-supported verandahs on both sides of main street to shelter residents from the sweltering sun and the tropical rains, the tile-covered saddle roofs and their colonial looks speak volumes of Viñales’ history. The Marti Park, flanked by the Church of the Holy Heart of Jesus (1888) and the former headquarters of the Spanish Colony –today’s Cultural Center that got a second floor in 1906- and with the addition of the old El Central hostel, are the most pretentious architecture the place has to offer. Another sightseeing site that strikes the attention of visitors for its architecture, history and for being a nice restaurant is the so-called Casa de Don Tomas. The town is the hub to move away from, either to the San Vicente Valley or to Dos Hermanas –standing on opposite directions. One of those spots marks the abundance of caves inside the round-top hills, like El Palenque de los Cimarrones, a replica of a hamlet of runaway slaves, and the famous Cueva del Indio, an underground spot with a river that runs through the cavern is navigable for nearly half a mile. The first quarter of a mile, through galleries lit up with artificial fixtures, can be toured on foot.
Dos Hermanas On the way back, in the Viñales town, you must steer down the road that leads to Minas de Matahambre. Ten minutes later you’ll take a right detour. As an additional reference, you’ll see several rustic houses and more sun-grown tobacco plantations, plus the traditional curing barns in sight. The road takes a slight turn on the opposite side and a small valley will meet the eye. The first thing you’ll hit upon is a huge painting of 590 feet long by 393 feet wide, created by Leovigildo Gonzalez, a follower of Mexican muralist Diego Rivera. There’s also a rustic restaurant that serves Cuban food and remains high on the list of hot spots among Habano Festival attendants for a perfect countryside lunch. The huge mural took three years –between 1959 and 1962– to be completed and it’s splayed on the vertical wall of one of the round-top hills that flank the fertile polygon. Its depiction intends to somewhat explain the geological evolution of the Sierra del Rosario mountain range –home to the Viñales Valley– through the representation of prehistoric creatures like ammonites, plesiosaurs, Megalocnus rodens –the great mammal of the Pleistocene Age– and the Homo sapiens, the peak of the long evolutionary process. Pinar del Rio is blessed with good tourist spots, some of them linked to nautical activities. Those who love scuba diving, for instance, will find in Maria La Gorda one of the world’s best-recommended sites for underwater exploration; and for those who come looking for isolation –without letting go of modern life’s conveniences and comfort– the San Antonio Cape is the perfect getaway, outfitted with a fabulous villa on the edge of a spectacular beach where all the joy of the whole wide world seems to fit in a nutshell.
Tobacco’s arrival in Pinar del Rio By 1610, tobacco started dotting the croplands near the Bayate, San Cristobal, Los Palacios, Rio Hondo, Guama, San Juan and Cuyaguateje rivers, as well as the fertile depressions of the Guaniguanico mountain range, Guane and los Cayos de San Felipe –currently the Viñales Valley. The leaf could grow exuberantly and sanely in that soil, with superior taste and aroma, and by the 18th century Pinar del Rio had turned out to be Cuba’s most privileged location for the growing of tobacco, thus prompting the building of small, makeshift wharves in the 19th century in Sabanalamar, Dayanigua, La Coloma, San Luis, Galafre, Bailen, Cuyaguateje y Cortes to eventually open up a steady maritime route of supply toward Batabano before being shipped up to Havana on means of ground transportation.
Viñales, of your shacks your valleys and mountains, of your sane entrails my verses have prevailed. Your reeds and rivers fertilize the pathway, the mockingbird and the goldfinch chirp to your womb that was the cradle and will be the tomb of Benito, the man from Viñales
Benito Hernandez Cabrera
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