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| Baracoa as viewed from the lookout point in Maya Yaragua. The Boca de Miel River and the Playa Negra lie at the foreground while the El Yunque and Bella Durmiente Mountains frame the background. |
Baracoa, Cuba’s La Primada, is the site of the first Spanish settlement where Christopher Columbus himself landed in 1492. Established in 1511, the place is so remote that it was technically reachable only by sea route from the rest of Cuba until a road was constructed through the picturesque Sierra de Purial Mountains in the 1960s. It is one of those places wherein you can literally see, feel, smell and even taste its age. You can also notice the prominence of indigenous Taino or the Auracana features among its mixed race inhabitants, a rarity anywhere else in Cuba as the indigenous Indian population was ravaged by European-borne diseases and by massacres. Its most famous denizen, among others, was the old Taino Chief Hatuey, the first rebel in a country of revolutionaries whose face now emblazons a local beer brand. Read More ...
