Cuba Guide
Pinar del Río
Gran Caverna de Santo Tomás
Address: El Moncada, 17km west of Viñales village
Opening time: Daily 8.30am–5pm
Price: $8CUC
The most extensive cave system in Cuba – and supposedly the third biggest in Latin America – the Gran Caverna de Santo Tomás attracts serious speleologists and small tour groups alike, but happily it has not yet become overrun with visitors. A specialist school here, the Escuela Nacional de Espeleologia Antonio Núñez Jiménez doubles as a visitor centre and includes a tiny museum.
Not all of the Gran Caverna de Santo Tomás's incredible 46km of caves, occupying eight different levels and with ten separate entrances, are accessible to the public. Most people, unless they are experienced spelunkers, are taken into either level six or seven, the mouths of which are semi-hidden up a rocky, forested slope from where there are fabulous views of the valley. Highlights of the walk – which covers a kilometre of chambers and passageways, quite narrow in places – include surprising cave winds, bats flying about and underground pools. There is an array of stalagmites and stalactites in all kinds of shapes and sizes, as well as all manner of contortions in the rock face which prevent the walk-through from getting monotonous. The knowledgeable guides point out a fascinating array of things along the way, such as easy-to-miss plants, deposits of guano, the significance of the markings and colourings on the walls and ceilings and, on level six, a replica of a mural found in a less accessible part of the system. The mural is part of the evidence, as is the 3400-year-old skeleton found here, that these caves were once the refuge of the Guanahatabeys, the original inhabitants of Cuba.