Our Taxi driver collected us at 10am and first took us out to Saint Thomas Cave, which is the biggest and most important cave system in Cuba and second most important in all of Latin America.
St Thomas cave can only be entered with a guide as there are no set routes and no lighting inside. We had out taxi driver line up a guide and we ascended a rock face before coming to a small entry hole in the side of the mountain. Before we entered we agreed on a set route and were given headlamps.
The whole thing felt very unofficial, and soon enough I was positive we were entering one of the other 64 entrances to the cave illegally. The cave was spectacular but about 45 minutes into our 90 minute tour it came to an end when another Cuban entered the cave and exchanged some words with our guide. We were told that the tour was over and lead out of the cave in a hurry. About half way out our guide told us that his mother was sick and on her way to hospital, however after being in Cuba for a month I automatically questioned his story.
After making a quick exit we were told to make our own way back to the road to wait for our taxi and the guide made his own way out. We spotted him at a memorial only 20 minutes later and I still suspect the story about his mother was just an excuse to save face. I am pretty sure that what really happened was that we were about to get busted but warned by the guides “spotter” before getting caught.
The rest of the day our personal driver took us to some great locations in the valleys including the prehistoric mural which is a horrific 100 plus meter painting on one of the cliff faces, several other caves and a farm.
We finished the tour around 2pm, then chilled for a few hours before taking a taxi to an amazing lookout point for dinner and to watch the sun set where a dog decided to piss on my bag and claim it as his own, which Viv found hilarious.
