CubaPLUS Magazine

The Cuban province of Guantánamo is the easternmost in the nation and today has particularly attractive scenarios in terms of nature tourism, adventures and rural areas, perfect for attendees to Turnat 2024.

Precisely, this place is part of the program of the 14th edition of the International Nature Tourism Event (Turnat 2024). This context is benefited by the modality of circuit tourism, which the Ministry of Tourism (Mintur) of the island is taking up again with force.

Guantánamo has more than 500 thousand inhabitants, and 70 percent of the territory is mountainous with emphasis in terms of economic activities in agriculture, culture, history and tourist products linked to nature. One of the province's historians, Luis Figueres, once mentioned Loma de la Gobernadora as the highest area and viewing point, when he recalled that Admiral Christopher Columbus had been there on April 30, 1494, during his second trip to the island.

This viewing point is actually located on Loma La Gobernadora, he stressed, better known by locals as Loma de La Herradura, 27 kilometers from Guantánamo, the provincial capital, on the road that connects Guantánamo-Mirador La Gobernadora and Baracoa.

However, the most outstanding stopover point for walks is in the city of Baracoa, perhaps the most interesting city in all of Cuba. A very special landscape surrounds it, a city of mountains, culture, rivers and traditions, as considered by scholars, such is the case of its historian Alejandro Hartmann.

The first person to be impacted by it was Christopher Columbus, on November 27, 1492, who wrote in his Navigation Diary: The most beautiful thing in the world. The municipality of Baracoa is bordered to the north by the Atlantic Ocean, to the south by Imías and Maisí, and to the west by Moa. It has an area of 97,600 hectares and a population of 78,214 inhabitants (2023), with a density of 84.5 inhabitants per square kilometer.

The main products of the region are coconut, cocoa and coffee, although since the end of the 1990s tourism has become one of its main sources of income due to its extraordinary beauty.

The city was founded on August 15, 1511 with the name of Our Lady of the Assumption of Baracoa by the Spanish conquistador Diego Velázquez, and the self-respecting traveler must visit it at least once on his pilgrimages through Cuba.

(Taken from Prensa Latina)