Westworld Alberta

Fall 2014

Westworld Alberta

Issue link: http://westworldmagazine.ama.ab.ca/i/365611

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Proudly Canadian Members Save! No Need to Wait for a Sale... Save up to 30% Every Day When you bring your CAA membership card to any Cloverdale Paint Store, you'll receive exclusive discounts and special incentives. Find the location nearest you at www.cloverdalepaint.com 28 w e s t w o r l d A l b e r t A | f a l l 2 0 1 4 mischa oak Pinar del río: is is Cuba's greenest province. e highlight is Viñales, a village surrounded by a national park, set in a tobacco-growing region speckled with limestone cliff s and inhab- ited by cigar-puffi ng farmers who still use oxen to plough the land. It's also one of the friendliest places in the country. Stay with a local family in a casa particular (see "Where to Stay," opposite). Visit the national park offi ce four km south of town to join any number of group excursions: a bicycle tour of the region's three pastoral valleys, a tobacco farm tour, a park hike or a subterra- nean excursion to Gran Caverna de Santo Tomás, Cuba's largest cave. trinidad: Cuba's southern jewel is this intact 19th-century colonial town, built by erstwhile sugar barons, that was listed as a UneSCo World Heritage Site in 1988. Safe and well- populated with visitors (though not overrun), Trinidad off ers plenty of appeal for those trav- elling alone. Immerse yourself in the history at several in-town museums, organize a hike with any Trinidad tour agency (there are sev- eral in town; all government-run) to natural swimming pools and waterfalls in the nearby escambray Mountains, or just fl op down on the sand at Playa Ancón, the fi nest beach on Cuba's Caribbean coastline. Many of the town's welcoming casas particulares reside within protected colonial-era buildings. Las terrazas: This pioneering eco-village, built in the late 1960s, is situated in a UneSCo biosphere reserve 55 km west of Havana. Visit the village on an organized day trip from Havana, or independently by overnighting in the sustainable – and safe – Hotel Moka las Terrazas. once there, sign up for a group hike led by a local naturalist across hills that were reforested in the 1970s. other popular attrac- tions here include bird watching, river swim- ming and Cuba's only zip line.

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