page_title: Viñales Valley
section_title: Overview
hierarchical_section_title: Viñales Valley / Overview
caption_attribution_description: English: Tobacco Harvesting, Valle de Viñales, Cuba, 2002. (Photo by Manuel Rivera-Ortiz; used with permission of author). Description by Rivera-Ortiz (used with permission of author): "A family of six grows tobacco in their farm which ends up in government warehouses to be shipped as cigars around the world. The family receives very little for their backbreaking work, with the rest of the profits from the sales of cigars going to government coffers for island-wide social programs. About 50,000 hectares (123,550 acres, or, 2.471 acres per hactare) are reserved for growing tobacco in Cuba. Tobacco is predominantly grown in the 90-mile-long (10-mile-wide) valley Vuelta Abajo, Pinar del Rio, where this photo was taken, at the foot of these limestone hills fraught with natural caves and tunnels which were once inhabited by Pre-Columbian Indians and later, by runaway slaves. In 1999, Altadis, a Franco-Spanish tobacco giant, is said to have signed a $500 million USD deal to take over a 50% stake in Cuba’s state owned firm Habanos S.A."
context_page_description: Viñales Valley is a karstic depression in Cuba. The valley has an area of 132 km² and is located in the Sierra de los Órganos mountains, just north of Viñales in the Pinar del Río Province.
context_section_description: Tobacco and other crops are cultivated on the bottom of the valley, mostly by traditional agriculture techniques. Many caves dot the surrounding hillfaces (Cueva del Indio, Cueva de José Miguel).
  The conspicuous limestone cliffs rising like islands from the bottom of the valley are called mogotes. They can be up to 300m tall.
  Viñales is a major tourist destination offering mainly hiking and rock climbing. The local climbing scene has started to take off in the last few years with many new routes being discovered resulting in an increase in local tourism.
caption: Manuel Rivera-Ortiz: Tobacco Harvesting, Viñales Valley, Cuba 2002
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