Kounoubwa Cave

Useful Information

Location:	Near Camp-Perrin, Departement Sud. 30 minutes walk to the cave from Camp-Perrin. (18.3063127, -73.8701264)
Open:	After appointment. [2025]
Fee:	Adults HTG 100. [2025]
Classification:	Karst Cave
Light:	torches provided.
Dimension:
Guided tours:
Photography:	allowed
Accessibility:	no
Bibliography:	Olivier Testa (2019): Grottes et canyons d'Haïti - Département du Sud 2019, pages 38-39. pdf
Address:	Fresnel or Joel Constant (guides), Tel: +509-36-69-54-58, Tel: +509-38-10-50-75.
As far as we know this information was accurate when it was published (see years in brackets), but may have changed since then. Please check rates and details directly with the companies in question if you need more recent info.

History

Description

The Creole name of this cave is Gwòt Kounoubwa, in French it is named Grotte Konoubois. As always, there are all sorts of strange combinations of these names, either out of ignorance or laziness. The Kounoubwa Cave is one of the most famous caves in Haiti, with the result that the walls are covered in thousands of graffiti. There are countless stories of Haitians who visited the cave as children and were proud to have written their name on it and brought back a piece of stalactite. Back then, the guide insisted: “No more than 5 per person!”

This is officially one of the "show caves" of Haiti, which means it is open to the public and officially visited by tourists. Nevertheless, the website grottocenter.org, which publishes coordinates of endangered caves, refuses to do so in this case. We are not aware of any reason for this, actually it’s a matter of marketing to draw as many visitors to a tourist site as possible. We can only guess that the author has a personal animosity against the cave guide.