One year after Fidel Castro had come down out of the Sierra Maestra Mountains to claim triumph for his revolution, he is to have declared, “The Revolution was the work of climbers and cavers.” Did the living icon and tireless voice of the Cuban Revolution really mean to credit the success of his revolution to climbers and cavers?
I unearthed this singular quote in the two volume "official history" of the Cuban Speleological Society. This massive history was written by Antonio Núñez Jiménez, Cuba’s most famous naturalist, and the author of over 50 scientific books. Núñez Jiménez, however, was also a trusted colleague of Fidel Castro, and the framer of the Revolution’s agrarian reform, which seized and redistributed Cuba’s large fincas and sugar cane plantations. At the Society’s 20th Anniversary in 1960, both Fidel and Núñez Jiménez spoke. It is the meticulous Núñez Jiménez who recites Fidel’s quote crediting the Revolution to climbers and cavers.
In his speech, Fidel responds that although Núñez Jiménez was motivated to climb peaks as a scientist, his own motivations to climb were those of an "alpinista", an alpinist, and he lamented about his frustrated desire to climb Pico Turquino (Cuba's highest at 6,561 feet) while fighting in the Sierra Maestra and staying one step ahead of the government’s troops!
If I had known that bit of history, I would not have presumed that rock climbing in Cuba would begin with my visit, almost 40 years after Fidel’s quote. I returned to Cuba to find my family roots. My guidebook, however, described an area known as the Viñales Valley as a “miniature Yosemite,” and since Yosemite Valley in California is a Mecca for the world’s rock climbers and where I had climbed for 25 years, I could not resist a diversion to one of Cuba’s most beautiful destination.
Viñales is undemiably spectacular, but yet, very different than Yosemite’s austere, deep canyon of 3,000-foot polished granite walls. In Viñales, I discovered one-thousand foot freestanding hummocks which the Cubans call “mogotes”, and are covered by a tangle of palms, plants, pines, and vines. Where the underlying rock is so overhanging that the jungle growth can not find a purchase, however, there are stupendous limestone caverns and vaults, bulging with tufas and hung with stalactites. In effect, exposed underground caves and cambers. And possibly, a rock climber’s fantasy, if that is, it would be possible to climb this unique architecture, through roofs, link alcoves, reach higher, bigger grottos, and in that way climb these sculpted walls and ceilings.
Probably because my family roots were in Cuba, I wanted not just to explore climbing in Cuba, but to climb with Cubans. Had others attempted to climb these wildly overhanging walls? Were there climbers in Cuba?
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No one in Viñales thought that climbing had ever been attempted. My own scouting revealed no trails to the base of the most promising climbing chambers or other clues of ascents. Ironically, a series of coincidences led me to the Cuban Speleological Society. (The same organization before whom Fidel had earlier made his “climbers and cavers” proclamation.)
The Society proposed that we put on a climbing presentation and see who showed up. We agreed. It was not to be an auspicious start. One of my climbing partners on that first exploratory trip had recently completed a road tour in support of his just published climbing book. He volunteered to bring his slide show. The book was on ice climbing-in a country perhaps without a recorded sub-freezing temperature. We arrived the day after the show was scheduled. It was in the afternoon at Havana’s sprawling Sport City campus. The broken shades could not block the rays of the powerful tropical sun. Making out the images was almost impossible, but then, half the slide were on ice climbing anyway.
A dozen Cuban climbers who came did not seem to mind. Our shared passion was infectious. That afternoon the Cubans took us to climb at their local crag: El Castillo de los Tres Reyes del Morro, the 400-year castle that guards the entrance to Havana Harbor. Its 50 to 60 foot walls of immense limestone blocks towered above the sea and the castle’s sandy moats, providing ideal small, accessible climbing walls. We were to discover that the Cuban climbers shared the castle with sandlot baseball games, kids diving from its rocks, and cavers practicing rappelling down and climbing back up ropes. Local photographers posed Cuban girls in evening dresses next to the sea or the castle to chronicle their “quince”, their 15th birthday and prelude to womanhood.
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We weren’t introducing the Cuban’s to climbing. They were showing us the resourceful, creative, vibrant Cubans’ spirit. Now, it reminds me of something I was to hear from Cubans in many forms, "We might be poor, but we’re certainly not miserable." |
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Two of the Cubans spent a month with us exploring the full length of Cuba for climbing sites. But we started and ended at the best, without doubt, Viñales. Since our initial climbs in Viñales, it has been declared a U.N. World Heritage site because of its outstanding limestone landscape, traditional methods of agriculture that have survived unchanged for several centuries, and a rich colloquial culture reflected in its villages and its music.
The work of water over and through porous limestone has sculpted the mogotes of the Viñales Valley. Caves were leeched in the limestone, which then collapsed, producing classic karst topography. Only the overhanging faces are not covered by aloe plants, fat-trunked Drago Palms, and impenetrable jungle vines.
The Valley’s only town, Viñales, is small, just a half-a-dozen streets. The majority of the people live in traditional thatched-roof Cuban farmhouses, called “bohios” in red-soiled valleys, perfect for growing tobacco, between the mogotes. About 10,000 people are scattered throughout the valley. Plows and carts are ox drawn. The local farmers, “guajiros”, are seldom without a horse and machete.
You could happily take in Viñales on purely visual terms if you wanted to. Its greatest charm, I find, is that within a day or two, you feel at home, comfortable in its small town ambience. Once, I hitched a ride back to town on a tractor. Without a word from me, the farmer wound his way through town, stopped in front of at my place, and turned to me, as though to say, “here you are.”
From the climbers’ perspective, Viñales’ unique high-profile architecture has the most interesting and varied climbing I know of in the western hemisphere. Each individual crag in the Viñales valley has a distinct character yet many are within minutes of one another. In Cuba’s overhead caverns, the bulging tufas and hanging stalactites come down from above and are suspended around you, over a shoulder, sometimes literally behind you. This is three-dimensional climbing.
“Stunning, stunning climbing,” is the verdict on Cuba of one globe-trotting Brit, after a month of pulling down on superb pocketed, sculpted rock. Cuba has been discovered by the world’s elite climbers. Lynn Hill, one of the world’s best rock climbers, Neil Gresham, perhaps Great Brittan’s best climbers, and David Brasco, one of Spain’s more prolific climbers have come to climb in Cuba.
Today, 250 routes of 30 to 200 meters in height have been climbed up the chiseled cliffs and caverns. More than enough to keep a visiting climber busy for weeks. Still, not yet world class. For example, Joshua Tree near Los Angeles has over 6,000 established climbing routes.
Cuba has excellent weather, and a population with a long history of friendship with visitors. Cubans are blunt, witty, spontaneous, passionate, musical, and openhearted. Rest days include isolated beaches, baseball, hiking, biking, caving, and illegal cock-fights. Add an exciting, sensuous nightlife, and the gregarious, vivacious Cuban people, Cuba may become the best outdoor adventure experience anywhere.
Few visitors to Cuba come away equivocal. Cuba makes you commit. Most become passionate about Cuba. It reaches into you emotionally. One friend became downright romantic: “From the natural beauty of the island to the smiling, friendly people, to the musical, magical nights, I fell for Cuba. And I fell hard. I can’t wait to get back.”
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LOGISTICS
Practically everything you need to know to climb in Cuba is available at cubaclimbing.com, a veritable electronic guidebook. It’s only in English.
December through March are the ideal climbing season. October and November (still the tail end of the hurricane season) and April have proved pleasant for climbing. Summer (May to September) is a rainy season. Cuba's geography means that no where on the island is far from the moderating, gentle tradewinds. Also, Cuba does not have pronounced seasonal variation in temperature.
For experienced, globe-trotting climbers, perhaps best of all, is Cuba’s total lack of hazards. It’s the best of climbing the formations of Thailand's world-renowned Railae but without poisonous snakes, such as viper or cobras, or malaria, typhoid dysentery, banditry, hostage-taking, or terrorism. Only mosquitos are a major inconvenience. Cuba's version of poison oak/ivy, called "guao" is common in Viñales. Another natural hazard is wasps. Three caverns have been dubbed by climbers as the "Wall of Wasps". Allergic visitors must come completely prepared with Epi pen (or two) and have benadryl always available.
The Cuban government’s approach to climbing has been ambivalent. All sports education, facilities, and operations are conducted by the government. The focus is on those sports that are part of the Olympics, and Cuban athletes have won international competitions totally out of proportion to the country’s size.
An individualistic, non-competitive, lasse faire, even dangerous, physical recreation does not fit within its highly successful East German-Soviet era sport hierarchy. For several years, the government has been pondering whether it will “authorize” climbing. At times this means a climber will be told that a permit is required, but also is unavailable. No one has been stopped. And the lack of official authorization has not stopped the government from publicizing some of the Cuban climbers, advertising in the International Edition of the official newspaper of the Communist Party to draw foreign climbers, organizing climbing festivals, and displaying photos of climbing in the new Visitor Center at Viñales National Park. The Cubans seem to take this kind of ambiguity in stride.
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