Day Walks in Rural Cuba

Havana

You are met on your arrival at Havana airport and transferred your hotel in Old Havana.

Your Havana city guide collects you from your hotel and takes you on a walking tour of Old Havana, followed by lunch and a tour of modern Havana in an old American car - see ‘One day in Havana’ in ‘Your Man in Havana’ on page 9. Your evening is free: your guide can suggest a choice of restaurants for dinner.

Lake Hanabanilla

You are picked up from your hotel in Havana this morning by your English-speaking private walking guide and driver for the 3-4hr journey to Lake Hanabanilla, in the countryside below the Sierra del Escambray. At Santa Clara you could visit Ché’s mausoleum and museum, and the wreckage of the armoured train carrying Batista’s men that Ché’s men overwhelmed. Your hotel for the next 2 nights is next to Lake Hanabanilla itself. It’s a fairly unlovely concrete hotel from the era of Soviet economic support but well-placed for walking.

A short boat ride on the lake brings you to the start of a winding trail up Cola Cambiada (which means ‘curly tail’ in Spanish), a winding, steep trail giving panoramic views over Lake Hanabanilla. Joined by a local naturalist guide you pass by banana and coffee plantations, and a little coffee finca. It’s a good 3-4hr walk in all, ending with a late lunch by the lake before returning to your hotel.

Trinidad

First a drive to the start of the trail to Salto del Caburni waterfall followed by a day’s fairly strenuous walking via waterfalls and steep paths. Look for hummingbirds and Cuba’s national flower, the white mariposa (butterfly jasmine) with its lovely scent. Listen out for Cuba’s national bird, the Tocororo, with its blue, red and white Cuba plumage. Later you drive down to the colonial town of Trinidad, staying at your beach hotel on Playa Ancón for 2 nights. In the evening you might take a taxi into Trinidad to stroll the cobbled streets and perhaps enjoy an evening’s music in the Casa de Trova.

Sierra del Escambray

There is some lovely walking behind Trinidad in the Escambray mountains, with tremendous views on hillsides of mixed forest, with coconut palms, and banana and cacao plantations on lower slopes, and coffee higher up. You follow trails around Hacienda Codina, with a local nature guide to introduce you to the local flora and fauna. Mind you don’t step on the world’s smallest frog!

Las Terrazas

An early start today as you travel to western Cuba, stopping en route for lunch, and arriving at the eco-community of Las Terrazas in the early afternoon in good time for a walk on one of the 6 trails. A local guide will show you around, explaining how the community works and the sustainable technologies they use.

This morning you walk the Santa Serafina trail (5km approx), which offers easy walking in lovely countryside along the valley of the Río San Juan, partly by the river itself. The path passes the evocative ruins of the Santa Serafina coffee plantation, built by French settlers. The trail is especially good for birds, passing through several different ecosystems before it ends by the river at a local swimming spot. After lunch it’s a short drive to Cueva las Portales, an impressive limestone cave that was Ché’s base during the Cuban missile crisis. Continuing to Viñales for a 2 night stay, you have dinner at your hotel with a spectacular view over the Viñales valley.

Viñales

Enjoy a day in the Cuban countryside, exploring this sometimes breathtakingly beautiful region known for its tobacco plantations and the sheer sided mogotes, or rugged limestone hills, which rise from a tropical plain rich with hibiscus, bougainvillea and flame trees, laid out in a patchwork of tobacco fields and rice paddies. Your guide will take you on a day of country walks, passing smallholdings where farmers still plough with oxen, and rickety drying sheds where tobacco leaves hang in loose rows developing the subtle flavours that will command the highest prices. It’s a tropical idyll, at peace with itself, though the work is back-breakingly hard.

Havana

There should be ample time for a leisurely start to the day and a visit to Havana’s Botanical Park before you are driven to the airport for your flight home.