Health / Hazards

Food and Water

The level of hygiene and public health in Cuba is high. Food is safe. Cubans and many visitors drink the local water without problem, but if you want to add to the plastic waste problem, bottled water is readily available. In most houses that rent rooms the water gets boiled and/or filtered.

Hazards

Cuba is the karst climbing of Thailand’s Railae, but without poisonous snakes, such as viper or cobras, or malaria, typhoid and dysentery. This is fortunate, since there is almost no medicine in Cuba. Nor are there risks from banditry, hostage-taking, terrorism, and artillery shelling — hazards that far-ranging climbers have faced elsewhere.

Crime

Petty crimes, pickpocketing, purse snatching stealing packs and cameras, and theft from cars are common. Cellphones, tablets, laptops, and cameras attract thieves.

Some hustlers (jineteros), fraudulent and pseudo tour agents and taxi drivers specialize in deceiving and defrauding tourists.

Outside of Havana and Santiago de Cuba, it is remarkable how often the cops know who robbed something. A Cuban cannot come home with a new car or television without detection. They may steal the tires and mirrors off an unguarded rental car, but not the car itself. Nor can they easily negotiate or sell foreign credit cards and passports. If stolen, your travel documents will probably just be trashed.

As a general rule, your documents are safe if left in your room. Cash may not be, and it can be problematic. However, try to carry only the cash you need for the day and never walk around with your passport. A photocopy in your wallet and the original safe somewhere else is a good practice.

Violent crimes are no longer rare. Cuba is slowly moving toward the rest of the world. Violent crime are generally associated with assaults committed during a burglary or robbery. 

Women traveling alone may be subject to unwanted harassment and verbal abuse, although macho Cubanos may think they’re  clever and captivating. Still, it’s not on the par with most of Latin America and nowhere near that of the Middle East and Asia. Incidents of assault, rape and sexual aggression have occurred. Consulate your embassy, and file a report with Cuban authorities.

For 60 years, the government’s has seized the properties of Cubans who’ve escaped, and then crammed in dozens of others into a family home or business (socialism has never produced sufficient housing or food). As a result, few neighborhoods are monolithic. A block with a luxury hotel or exceptional casas particular can include buildings appearing to be in an active war zone. If someone says, stay out of bad neighborhoods, they’re kidding you. Except where the upper class of government, party, and foreign workers live, most neighborhoods are a mix of well painted and maintained homes and buildings side-by-side with ancient, precarious edifices unpainted or fixed for half a century. In Havana Cubans may advise you not to walk under balconies, specially when it rains.

Do the best you can choosing where you walk late at night, or go with all your luggage or take out all your money. Obviously the level of risks in much lower outside of Cuba’s cities.

Still, in Cuba there are no gangs, Mafia, or organized crime. Guns of any type are rare. No mass killings or kidnappings.

As the even-handled Government of Canada recommends for security and safety in Cuba, Take normal security precautions.

Wasps

The major natural hazard is wasps. Some walls have hundreds of hanging nests. Most climbing lines have been cleared, although wasps occasionally reclaim some territory. Usually an active nests must be hit or brushed to provoke an attack. Allergic visitors must come completely prepared with Epi pen (or two) and benadryl, and have them always available.

Mosquitoes and Things That Sting

Dengue fever, a mosquito borne disease, has surfaced in Havana several times in the past decade, and each time the government has responded aggressively and fumigated extensively.

Mosquitos are a nasty, common pests, specially in jungle approaches or tree-shaded areas of climbs. Come prepared.

Poison Ivy Cuba’s version of poison oak-ivy, called “guao” is found in Viñales, although its range is not extensive. There is also said to be an anti-venom plant called “contra-guao,” but it has not been identified nor bottled.

Rappeling

A climbing hazard deserves special respect. The longer routes almost always require technical descents, trail ropes anchored to the wall, and particular attention to lengths of rappels. There is the real possibility of being stranded in space if you blow it.

Jineteros

Although not a hazard per se, “jineteros” (hustlers, in modern Cuban parlance) can be a serious annoyance. “Jineteras” has become the common term for a female prostitute. Jineteros follow you around in Havana, trying to sell you cigars or guide you to restaurants.

By contrast, Viñales has few jineteros on its streets – by day. Go the clubs at night, however, and you will see the same men and women there every night, waiting for a drink or offering to dance. The locals joke that Viñales has no jineteros, only “dance instructors.”

Be careful of people offering to “guide” you, or to take you to a casa particular where climbers stay. Or they may tell you that the casa you want is full, even out of business. Taxi drivers are notorious for this trick. You may not be charged directly. Instead the jinetero returns later to the casa and demands a commission from the owner, who will charge it back to you.

To some, there is no such thing as a dirt-bag foreigner. You are a good target for people looking to attach themselves to you for tips, meals, gear, commissions by directing you to a casa or paladar, or get almost anything of value. Be assured that if you ask for help, many will volunteer.

Drugs

Cuba treats possession, sale, or use of drugs seriously. Very little escapes its state security-police apparatus. If you try to buy drugs from a jinetero, the chances are that you are dealing with a government informant. Consider this: after just a couple of nights at the local clubs, you will be able to pick out the regulars, the “dance instructor.” If another local comes in, however, and sits down with visitors, he or she may later be quietly whisked away and perhaps detained. Why doesn’t this ever happen to the “dance instructors”?

Getting Help and Rescue

There are really only two kinds of sick or hurt — you need to be in bed or you need to be flown home.

The first had been easily accommodated in Cuba. Some thought even better than at their home country. Cuban doctors are well trained, knowledgeable professionals. They just don’t have modern medicine, diagnostic equipment, and testing laboratories. Most western medicines are not available. Pharmacies, which are common, stock herbal medicines and vitamins. Viñales has a clinic, and there is a hospital in Pinar del Rio, 27 km from Viñales.

Cuba doesn’t monetize much, and rarely very well. Health care may the exception. Cuba provides everything from doctors to some countries (Brazil, Bolivia, South Africa) to entire health care systems (Venezuela) for needed hard currency and oil. It’s not without criticism at home (fewer doctors available) and internationally, as forced labor, since the Cuban government keeps between 70 and 90% of the salaries paid by the host country and usually doesn’t allow families on missions or frequent visits home.

The Health Ministry now attempts to monetize medical treatments of foreign visitors to Cuba. Insurance is mandatory, although large worthless; it’s accident-only insurance, and does not cover other medical emergencies. Worse, it’s made obtaining assistance more difficult. Whereas before, if you were sick or injured, any casa particular would  have the neighborhood doctor come see you, probably immediately. Outside of the hospitals in Havana established for medical tourism, you would not be charged by doctor, clinic, or hospital.

Now, however, local doctors and the local clinic may be unwilling to provide non-emergency  care, forcing the visitor to travel to Pinar del Rio or Havana.

Currently, there is no organized high-angle rescue team in Viñales. The caving guides from Moncada (15km away) have rescue training, but overall, it’s best to count on other climbers at the cliff.

Cubans are never reluctant to help. If there is an accident, the victim will immediately be picked up, put into the nearest car, tractor, or cart, and taken to a clinic or hospital. They don’t usually stop to call or wait for a litter (nor immobilize an injury). Cubans would be stunned if asked to call the police or wait for an ambulance. The police don’t do public safety or accidents and will not come. The ambulance may be out-of-town, -gas. or -parts.