In hindsight, this was the area of Cuba that I liked best. Especially its natural surroundings. Surely I had seen a karst landscape or two before, and the size of this is no match for China's Yangshuo/Guilin, but "diving" into this valley by road is a spectacular sight. Its little hills, tobacco plants and colourful flowers do add an extra touch to the standard Cuban landscape of banana plants and royal palms.

Another thing that sets Vinales apart is that it is such a small town, just pottering around a bit far from the rest of the action of Cuba. It's a totally relaxed place. The town's inhabitants seem to have completely surrendered themselves to tourism. About 80% of the houses are in use as Casas Particulares. The rest sell drinks, food, or souvenirs. Large touring cars travel on and off through the town's main street, delivering more tourists (including day-trippers from Havana or even the beach resorts).

To see the valley's main sights, I joined a bike tour. Although the valley is only 12km long, I found it quite a tough ride. Cuban-made mountain bikes aren't the most comfortable in the world. And those nasty mogotes! Annoying little hills always involve a steep climb. On the way back we also had the wind against us. So I am not ashamed to say that I walked a fair bit of the last 5 km.

Part of the tour was the obligatory visit to a tobacco farm. I had not seen tobacco fields before and found it interesting to hear about the delicate and time-consuming process that involves tobacco growing. The other sights in the valley aren't much, though from a distance the quite tacky Mural de la Prehistoria is not bad at all.