El Nicho
A Chain Of Waterfalls Dropping Into Cold Turquoise Pools In The Sierra Del Escambray, Reached From Cienfuegos Rather Than From Trinidad · Cumanayagua, Cienfuegos
The Hanabanilla river comes off the Escambray in a series of drops, and at El Nicho it falls into a chain of pools so clear and so deep a blue that most photographs of them look adjusted. A short looping trail, the Sendero Reino de las Aguas, runs up alongside the falls through wet forest, past pools you are allowed to swim in, to a mirador above the top drop. The whole circuit is around a kilometre and a half and takes an hour and a half with swimming, which is what everyone comes for - the water is meltingly cold after the Cuban coast, which is the point. It sits inside the Topes de Collantes protected area, but the road in is from Cumanayagua on the Cienfuegos side rather than from Trinidad, and getting that wrong costs most of a day. Go early: the excursion buses reach the gate in the late morning, and the twenty minutes after they arrive turn a private set of pools into a queue. The falls run hardest in the wet months and thin out badly by the end of the dry season, which is exactly when the walking weather is best.
El Nicho, Sierra del Escambray, Cumanayagua, Cienfuegos, Cumanayagua, Cienfuegos, Cuba
Open daylight hours with an entrance fee; the last admission is well before dark because the trail must be walked back. The road in from Cumanayagua is rough in its final stretch and takes about ninety minutes from Cienfuegos. Excursion buses arrive late morning. Heavy rain closes the trail and can cut the road.