Valley of Vinales: Unquestionably, this is one of the parts of Cuba that is best known internationally. UNESCO has declared the Valley of Vinales to be a part of world culture, and it is also a national monument.
It is surrounded by pin-cushion hills which contain many caves and underground rivers. The Los Jazmines and La Ermita Hotels, the Palenque de los Cimarrones (Runaway Slave Settlement), the Mural of Prehistory, Indio (Indian's) Cave, the Los Acuaticos Community, San Diego de los Banos and the town of Vinales are nearby.
Its beauty and size, 132 square km (51 square miles) make it the most outstanding example of karst valleys in Cuba. This fertile area is surrounded by hills with vertical sides and rounded tops, called mogotes (pin-cushion hills). With 140 to 400 m (between 460 and 1312 feet) high, they are the only hills of this kind in Cuba. They contain many caves, some of them created by underground rivers (which are navigable in part), which form one of the most extensive cave systems in Latin America.
