Baracoa is a municipality and city in Guantánamo Province near the eastern tip of Cuba. It was founded by the first governor of Cuba, the Spanish conquistador Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar in August 15 of 1511. It is the oldest Spanish settlement in Cuba and was its first capital (the basis for its nickname Ciudad Primada, "First City").
Baracoa is located on the spot where Christopher Columbus landed in Cuba on his first voyage. It is thought that the name stems from the indigenous Arauaca language word meaning "the presence of the sea."
Baracoa lies on the Bay of Honey (Bahía de Miel) and is surrounded by a wide mountain range (including the Sierra del Purial), which causes it to be quite isolated, apart from a single mountain road built in the 1960s.
The original inhabitants of the island were Taíno. They were eradicated by the Spanish all over Cuba except here and this is the only place where descendants still live. A local hero is Hatuey, who fled from the Spanish in Hispaniola and raised a Taíno army to fight the Spanish in Cuba. According to the story Hatuey was betrayed by a member of his group and sentenced to burn at the stake. It is said that just before he died a Catholic priest tried to convert him so he would attain salvation; Hatuey asked the priest if Heaven was the place where the dead Spanish go. When he received an answer in the affirmative he told the priest that he’d rather go to Hell.
On October 12, 1492, Christopher Columbus landed in Cuba in a place he named Porto Santo. It is generally assumed from his description that this was Baracoa, although there are also claims it was Gibara. But Columbus also described a nearby table mountain, which is almost certainly nearby El Yunque. He wrote in his logbook … the most beautiful place in the world …I heard the birds sing that they will never ever leave this place….
The remote location at the eastern end of the Cuban island has kept the influence of mass tourism quite low, despite the idyllic location. Baracoa can be reached by bus from Santiago de Cuba (4 hours) or by plane from Havana (2 hours).
(Wikipedia)
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It took us some time to reach the outpost of Baracoa that is located in the far east of Cuba. It’s a different world than rest of the island: less crowded, vibrant, with tropical forest and magnificent scenery around. Maybe not that attractive at the first sight, however far much more magical after a deeper exploration.
Yumurí Canyon is a lush, tropical gorge and an unexpectedly impressive sight to say the least, with walls at points measuring nearly 200 m from the canyon floor. Its eponymous river, dotted with deep natural swimming pools, is neither deep nor particularly fast flowing, making it ideal for exploring the near-complete seclusion of eastern Cuba either via rowboat or on foot.
