From the minute we hopped off the bus, Vinales had a more traveller friendly atmosphere than we had experienced so far. Every house is up for rent as a casa particular and there are restaurants and activities a plenty.
There seems to be always a party within earshot in Cuba. This might be a result of the copious amounts of cheap alcohol available. Even during a long hike, you can turn a corner and find a makeshift jungle bar serving rum based mixed drinks and cervezas (but no water). We had the displeasure of arriving in Vinales just as the local Carnival was getting ready to start. The locals seemed to take great pleasure in 4 days straight of street food, loud music, truckloads of beer for sale at all hours, and bouncy castles and shoddy amusement rides set up in the middle of the road. We opted to change casas and move to the outskirts of town in order to get more sleep.
Vinales is a pleasant town with a backdrop of stunning rocky outcrops. We ended up staying most of our holiday here and enjoyed day-hikes, zip-lining, the hop-on-hop-off bus, hotel pools, visiting a family with guinea pigs, rock climbing, and caving.
-steve