Viñales Cowboy Ride, Cuba

Livio's Adventures

7 years ago

This is a quick overview of a Viñales Cowboy Ride experience, in the cowboy town of Vinales. It was a 3-hour ride with a guide. This post provides logistical details and facts as well as links to a videos. This is a tourist experience on a shoestring (think tiny budget).

Vinales is an easy bus ride from Havana and is a new popular tourist destination. The town is expanding at a rapid pace. Although this means that most existing houses on the one main road are simply adding more rooms.

Difficulty Level:

Vinales has the look and feel of a real cowboy town. But for tourists there’s no escaping 3-hour package tour. Only $25 per person. Was it reasonable? Wait, for just a bit more you get to visit additional sites. Sounded like a car sales pitch to me. We asked around and it seemed everyone was connected to a guy who arranged the horses. So ultimately we agreed to the riding package only. But once we began the ride it became apparent that more than the horses were pre-arranged. Welcome to Epcot.

The available horses are tame and know the circuit so are like self-driving cars.

Vinales Valley

Viñales is a major tourist destination offering mainly hiking, rock climbing and horse riding.

Venales on a budget:

Total Cost Range of this Activity is: $

Expect to spend the following per day: Room $25 (double occupancy & breakfast included), $5 lunch, $10 dinner, $10 drinks & misc ($50/day). Plus transportation and other package tourist items. This is the minimum and requires some bargaining and discipline.