The Great Santo Tomás Cavern

The Great Santo Tomás Cavern, the largest cave system in Cuba, is located in the western province of Pinar del Río, in the Mogotes Valley, close to the tourist city of Viñales. It is in the rural Moncada area, a community of unusual brick houses surrounded by fine grass and fruit trees. The cavern has more than 45 km of galleries and was called the "Princess" of Cuban caves by the great Cuban geographer, spelunker, and archaeologist Antonio Núñez Jiménez (1923-1998), who made his fi rst expedition to the cave in 1954.

Núñez Jiménez was the first president of the Cuban Academy of Sciences and founder (on January 15th, 1940) of the Spelunking Society of Cuba, and later of the Spelunking Society of Latin America and the Caribbean. The National Spelunking School is in a singular space between two hills, and from its founding in 1984, the Great Santo Tomás Cavern became a base of study and training for new generations of Cuban spelunkers.

Recently, a group of Cuban, Puerto Rican, Brazilian, and Costa Rican specialists decided to stay for a number of days at the National Spelunking School. For those unfamiliar with the Santo Tomás Cavern, it was quite surprising to walk amid its gigantic columns, stalagmites, and stalactites and cross some of the underground canals that in rainy seasons are abundantly full and vigorous.