Natural beauty and history come together in Cuba's northeastern region of Bariay, the site where Christopher Columbus landed for the first time on the island, and which five centuries later draws countless people.
The area includes the park bearing the name of the "Great Admiral of the Ocean Sea", who, according to researchers, landed there on October 28, 1492 with his three ships: the Pinta, the Niña and the Santa María.
The area commemorates both the stay of the Spaniards at that time and the presence of the Taíno natives, their culture, traditions, rites and religious dances.
The Christopher Columbus Park is a truly wonderful place, surrounded by greenery and virgin nature.
Cayo Bariay is located in the eastern Cuban province of Holguin, one of the most touristic of the country, on the north coast; an unmissable place to visit.
Columbus' travel diaries record an expression that Cubans are proud of and constantly quote: "This is the most beautiful land that human eyes have ever seen", a phrase that varies according to sources because the admiral switched between the Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and Catalan languages.
The landscape is dominated by a gently rolling plain to the north and steep slopes to the south, formed on volcanic rocks marked by erosion.
Inaugurated in 1992 in Punta Sabaneta, a commemorative monument recalls the encounter between two very different cultures, the European, reflected in ruins representing the development of the neoclassical, and the indigenous people, represented by replicas of objects found in excavations.
It was here that Cuban authors Miguel Angel Esquivel Perez and Cosme Casals Corella launched the book ‘Derrotero de Cristóbal Colón por la costa de Holguín’ (Christopher Columbus' route along the Holguin coast), an annotated edition with different aspects of the route.
Casals Corella told this journalist that this volume highlights the area, because Bariay and its landscapes became a mark of identity, culture and general knowledge.
Bariay Key became a bay together with Bururú, which belonged to the northern coast of San Salvador de Bayamo, known as the Highlands of Maniabón, and it was not until 1752 that it became part of the jurisdiction of Holguín.
For the geographer and researcher Antonio Núñez Jiménez (1923-1998), considered the fourth discoverer of Cuba, Bariay is the House of Columbus, and that scenery symbolizes the door that opened the way to modern Cuba.
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