Guided walking holidays in Cuba with Authentic Adventures

"You do not tell them about the strange and lovely birds that are on the farm the year round, nor about all the migratory birds that come through, nor that quail come in the early mornings to drink at the swimming pool, nor about the different types of lizards that live and hunt in the thatched arbor at the end of the pool, nor the eighteen different kinds of mangoes that grow on the long slope up to the house."
– Hemingway, The Great Blue River (1949)

Walking pace is undoubtedly the best way to see Cuba's countryside and its wonderfully laid-back cities, now the preserve of UNESCO World Heritage sites.

Exploring the meandering cobblestone side streets on foot, stopping to peer through doorways hiding the courtyard of a museum, then stepping into a square and admiring the grandiose architecture, whose high arched entranceways are the heritage of 400 years of Spanish colonial influence.

Cuba's fabulous cities are built on the coast, so close to the sea you can taste salt in the air. Walking along the El Malacon in Havana, as all the local people do, to watch the sunset, you can feel spray from the waves breaking on the sea wall. Even the tenement blocks – the centre of Cuba's rap culture – are on the sea, and the coast path continues from there to fishing villages where work goes on in much the same way as it has done for decades.

In Trinidad, side streets of pretty candy-coloured houses, the balconied colonial buildings a legacy of the era of sugar plantations, give way to idyllic Caribbean beaches of white sand. Trinidad's surrounding countryside has rich arable farmland, and luscious green valleys of sugar cane, whose gentle inclines reach up to the hills and hidden waterfalls.

At walking pace we can experience a taste of life on the farms; the man stirring a vat of tomato puree over an open fire, the farmhands working on horseback. Local people are open and friendly welcoming visitors with warm hospitality. A sugar farmer may invite us in to taste the freshly pressed sugar cane juice before we continue on our way.

Everywhere in Cuba there is music, so we won't be surprised if the farm workers take a break from their labour under the hot midday sun and pick up a guitar and play under the shade of a tree. Music drifts from bars and doorways, and everywhere people carry musical instruments.

The American author Ernest Hemingway had a love affair with Cuba and lived here on and off for 20 years during the 1940s and 1950s. His sparse realist writing drew portraits of the local characters and his descriptions of Cuba's nature and the sea endure – he called the Gulf Stream the Great Blue River. We may drop in on his house and the bars where he enjoyed many a Daiquiri cocktail made with Havana rum and freshly squeezed fruit juice.

Enjoy Cuba at walking pace and if you can speak a few words of Spanish you'll feel even more included when you are invited to join the salsa party.

Havana & Trinidad