Cuba - Lonely Planet [248]
Sights & Activities
The Mirador de La Loma del Puerto is 6km east of Trinidad on the road to Sancti Spíritus. The 192m-high lookout provides the best eagle-eye view of the valley with – if you’re lucky – the steam train chugging through its midst. There’s also a bar.
The valley’s main focal point is the Manaca Iznaga (admission CUC$1), 16km northeast of Trinidad. Founded in 1750, the estate was purchased in 1795 by the dastardly Pedro Iznaga, who became one of the wealthiest men in Cuba by the unscrupulous business of slave trafficking. The 44m-high tower next to the hacienda was used to watch the slaves, and the bell in front of the house served to summon them. Today you can climb to the top of the tower for pretty views, followed by a reasonable lunch (from noon to 2:30pm) in the restaurant-bar in Iznaga’s former colonial mansion. Don’t miss the huge sugar press out back.
Three kilometers beyond the Manaca Iznaga, on the valley’s inland road, is the Casa Guachinango, an old hacienda built by Don Mariano Borrell toward the end of the 18th century (now a restaurant). The Río Ay is just below, and the surrounding landscape is wonderful. To get to Casa Guachinango, take the paved road to the right just beyond the second bridge as you come from Manaca Iznaga. The Meyer train stops right beside the house every morning, and you can walk back to Iznaga from Guachinango along the railway line in less than an hour.
Seven kilometers east of the Manaca Iznaga turn-off, then 2km south, is the Sitio Guáimaro, the former estate of Don Mariano Borrell. The seven stone arches on the facade lead to frescoed rooms, now a restaurant.
Getting There & Away
There are two train options – both equally unreliable. The tourist steam train goes at the speed of Thomas the Tank Engine, but it’s a sublime journey when it’s running through an impossibly green valley full of munching cows and slender bridges. The train is pulled by the indomitable and classic engine No 52204, built by the Baldwin Locomotive Company of Philadelphia in August 1919. Organized as an excursion (CUC$10), passengers pay for their own lunch separately at the Manaca Iznaga where they can visit the Manaca Iznaga and the famous bell-tower. Cubatur ( 99-63-14; Antonio Maceo No 447; 9am-8pm) in Trinidad will know when the next tourist train trip is scheduled and if it’s working. Tour desks at the Ancón hotels sell the same train tour for CUC$17, including bus transfers to Trinidad. For details of the daily local train from Trinidad Click here.
Horseback tours can be arranged at the travel agencies in Trinidad or Playa Ancón, or contract a horse and guide privately in Trinidad for CUC$15 per six hours.
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TOPES DE COLLANTES
Elevation 771m
The crenellated, 90km-long Sierra del Escam-bray is Cuba’s second-largest mountain range and it straddles the borders of three provinces: Sancti Spíritus, Cienfuegos and Villa Clara. Though not particularly high (the loftiest point, Pico de San Juan, measures just 1156m), the mountain slopes are rich in flora and surprisingly isolated. In late 1958 Che Guevara set up camp in these hills on his way to Santa Clara and, less than three years later, CIA-sponsored counterrevolutionary groups operated their own cat-and-mouse guerrilla campaign from the same vantage point.
Though not strictly a national park, Topes is, nonetheless, a heavily protected area. The umbrella park, comprising 200 sq km, overlays four smaller parks – Parque Altiplano, Parque Codina, Parque Guanayara and Parque El Cubano (Click here) – while a fifth enclave, El Nicho in Cienfuegos province, is also administered by park authority Gaviota.
The park takes its name from its largest settlement, an ugly health resort founded in 1937 by dictator