San Diego de los Banos

Cuba'S Thermal Spa Town, With Sulphurous Springs Used Since The Seventeenth Century, Beside The Park Holding The Cave Che Guevara Commanded From During The 1962 Missile Crisis · San Diego de los Banos, Pinar del Rio

Sulphurous water comes out of the ground here at something like body temperature, and people have been getting into it since the seventeenth century - the founding story involves an enslaved man with a skin disease who bathed in the river and recovered, which is a legend rather than a record. A formal bathhouse has stood here since the eighteenth century and the current balneario is a working medical spa: Cuban patients on prescribed courses for rheumatic and skin conditions, treated clinically rather than indulgently, with visitors welcome alongside them. The town around it is small and faded. Ten kilometres away in La Guira park are two better reasons to come: the ruined gothic gates and gardens of the Hacienda Cortina, and the Cueva de los Portales, where Che Guevara set up his command post during the 1962 missile crisis, and where his bed, his desk and a concrete table are still standing in the rock.

Balneario San Diego, San Diego de los Banos, Pinar del Rio, San Diego de los Banos, Pinar del Rio, Cuba

The balneario keeps daytime hours and operates as a MEDICAL SPA with Cuban patients on prescribed courses as well as visitors; treatments are booked on arrival or through the hotel. The CUEVA DE LOS PORTALES, about ten kilometres away in La Guira, keeps daylight hours with a small charge and depends on staffing. About two hours from Havana. Hurricane Ian damaged this area in 2022.

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