#Aquaticos driver#

When I queried if he was an official guide his response seem to roughly translate to ‘I might not look like a guide now, but wait until I get my hat and shirt then you’ll believe me’. Luckily he was a guide who could take me on a tour with him to visit the houses on the mountain, and he would also take me to a cave where we could swim. He explained that it was still quite far to Los Aquaticos, and there was lots of water on the path so I would probably get lost on my own. When I finished photographing sunrise I asked a local on horseback for directions. Luckily the view from the National Park office was outstanding. Unfortunately this was one of those hikes which was a lot further than it sounded, and I only reached the National Park office by the time the sun was rising. In theory you can walk there from Viñales, so I headed off early in the morning, with rough directions from the taxi driver, hoping to reach Los Aquaticos by sunrise. The next day I tried to hike to Los Aquaticos, a community of farmers living high in the mountains. The view from the balcony of our restaurant. It was lovely to enjoy a nice meal while the watching the sun set over the Vinales valley. That evening we selected a restaurant on the hill which had marvellous views over the valley. He used local honey to make both, which was a nice addition to the mojito. Our final stop was on a tobacco plantation, where a local tobacco grower offered us mojitos before showing us how he hand rolls his cigars. At the coffee mill we had the chance to learn how they hand ground the coffee, before being offered a drink. The ‘swimming’ lake wasn’t the clearest place that I’ve swam, but it did the job of cooling us down.

The cave was in one of the mogotes, where for a small fee a local guide gave us a torch and lead us through, pointing out the rocks that vaguely represented animals. The scenery was stunning, with the mogotes rising above the surrounding farmland.

#Aquaticos driver#

I shared a taxi with some friends I had met in my hostel in Havana, and when our driver told us his family runs a Casa we figured that we would check it out. The next day we did the classic horse riding tour through the valley visiting a cave, lake, coffee mill and local cigar producer. Whether released into the atmosphere, onto land or into rivers, synthetic compounds produced by human activities (e.g. Noel Kempff Mercado – Bolivia Sep 11, 2016Īfter spending a lot of time in the cities in Cuba, I was looking forward to visiting the countryside, and Viñales didn’t disappoint.Torotoro National Park – Bolivia Oct 3, 2016.