A famous place in the Cuban countryside, the valley is a spectacular space for its color, greenery, intimacy and the production there of the best tobacco in the world, the leaves for cigars.
Walking through the landscape of the province of Pinar del Río, the westernmost province of Cuba, has an extremely remarkable point on a path prepared by ecologists in the famous Valley.
Precisely the local guides, such as Douglas Pino, tell the visitor interesting stories.
Dedicated to trekking, biking, horseback riding, bird watching and other modalities, Pino belongs to the Heritage Bureau of this place.
He points out that the path named Del Mirador al Valle starts from a balcony that is located in areas of the Los Jazmines hotel, from where you have an extremely interesting view of the valley, and from where many photographers immortalize the place.
It reminds tourists that before the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in 1959 there was only one small business in the place, the Vera restaurant, since the valley as such became known in the 1920s due to the painter Domingo Ramos. Henriquez.
The artist was already famous and was looking for a place of interest to capture his landscapes and it was then that in 1938, Ramos Henríquez represented Cuba at a fair in New York.
This representation is made with a landscape painted by him to precisely represent the Valley of Viñales, a large oil painting.
A year later, the Club de León proposed in Havana the work of a viewpoint —different from the current one— and in 1941 a monument to the painter was erected for internationalizing that Cuban panorama.
From then on, it was widely visited and received various awards such as: Protected Area (1976), National Monument (1978), Cultural Landscape of Humanity (1999, awarded by UNESCO), and National Park (2000).
All these recognitions, comments the guide, are aimed at strengthening the environmental protection of that scenario.
Hotel and service chains operate in the territory, with the presence of Islazul, Cubanacán and Campismo Popular.
The town of the same name always attracted attention. The Valley treasures the full range of colors perfect for nature lovers.
At first glance, the mogotes appear full of greenery that floods the senses, intertwining with the national tree, the royal palm.
Embedded in these places are the tobacco fields, with the peculiarity of having a chemically perfect soil for the leaf and a climate very much in keeping with this crop.
The Viñales Valley covers 132 square kilometers in the middle of the Sierra de los Órganos, which together with the Sierra del Rosario make up the mountain range of the Cordillera de Guaniguanico, both separated by the San Diego River.
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