Alex Lowther for The New York Times  Cuban climbers rely on tourists to donate shoes, harnesses and ropes to climb. More Photos »  VALLE DE VIÑALES, Cuba — Here, the mountains weren’t pushed up from underneath, as mountains usually are. In this national park and Unesco World Heritage Site, everything but the mountains fell down. The mogotes, as the islands of karstic limestone are called, are gently domed, like a loaf of crusty bread, but the sides seem to have been cleaved off, leaving terrain that drops precipitously to the valley floor.  In the late 1990s, rock climbers found a paradise where the walls of the mogotes are too steep for the otherwise ubiquitous crawling vines and striving trees. Huge overhangs, some 500 feet tall, are covered with chandeliers of stalactites and intermittent blobs and pockets, all perfectly formed for human hands and feet to climb from the bottom of a cliff to its top.  Soon, local residents caught on, and a flourishing climbing scene took hold. Viñales became a top destination for climbers from Europe, Canada and the United States. Hundreds of routes went up the major mountain faces in the valley, and for years visiting climbers had essentially free rein.  In late March, even as Pope Benedict called for “authentic freedom” in Cuba before an estimated 200,000 people in Havana, climbers here, three hours’ drive west of the capital, were wrestling with the prohibition of their sport. In an era when the Cuban government has been easing restrictions — allowing private boardinghouses, private restaurants and now the sale of real estate and automobiles — it seems to have moved in a sharply different direction here, threatening the prosperity of Viñales and the future of the sport in Cuba by enforcing a ban on climbing and regulating independent tourism in general.  In March, out in the welcome cool of nighttime, under the fluorescent lights of a plaza-side bar and over rum-laced national cola, the conversation among climbers centered on the guards who have been enforcing the prohibition since early in the year. Where had they been that day? Did anybody get busted climbing? What happened? And then, “Why are they there at all?”  Jens Franzke, a climber from Dresden, Germany, here with his wife, Ina, for three weeks, was fed up. “It feels like East Germany before the fall of the Berlin Wall,” he said. “There are all these rules, and none of them make any sense. There are no signs. No detailed maps at all. You ask if you can go somewhere and do something by yourself and they say, ‘No, it’s impossible.’ ”  During their trip, Franzke, 46, and his wife had been forced to stop climbing multiple times, threatened with police action by park guards and had been told that the “Cuba Climbing” guidebook they were using to find routes in the valley was illegal to use because the authors no longer lived in Cuba. (They live in Wyoming and Canada.)  “It’s a real shame because it’s such a paradise,” Franzke said. The couple managed to climb nearly every day they wished by skirting the rules and the guards, but “we will never come back,” he said.  This is the main worry for residents and climbers. Viñales is the hub of the valley and the heart of Viñales National Park. The bustling town of about 17,000 has more than 300 private boardinghouses that rent rooms to tourists here to hike, explore the cliffs, ride horses, watch birds and climb in the national park. All that has allowed the valley to overcome the poverty typical across the country.  Armando Menocal, one of the “Cuba Climbing” guidebook authors and an expert on the region, said, “Tourism has created a strong, vibrant economy, and it’s all based on outdoor recreation.” The crackdown, if it continues, “could be devastating to tourism and climbing in Viñales.” he said.  Cuban climbers rely on tourists to donate shoes, harnesses and ropes to climb. Equipment is not available, and even if it was the cost would be prohibitive in a country where government salaries average between $15 and $25 a month. Without new donations, shoes, harnesses and ropes wear out. Without replacement, the bolts in the rock that secure climbers corrode and would eventually become unsafe. Climbing on the mogotes would become, essentially, impossible.
Enforcement of a government ban on climbing in the Valle de ViÃ±ales, which began early this year, is jeopardizing the sport and the regionâs prosperity.