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| Baracoa Cuba |
Baracoa Cuba with a population of less than 69,000 Cubans is located 200 kilometers east of Santiago, 120 kilometers east of Guantánamo, and is really miles from anywhere. The somnolent town is nestled hard up against the ocean beneath rugged mountains, most notably the great hulking mass of El Yunque, a huge, flat-topped mesa. Baracoa curves around the wide Bahía de Miel (Honey Bay), lined with black-sand beaches.
Isolation breeds individuality, and Baracoa is both isolated and individual, so much so that the town has been likened to Macondo in Gabriel García Márquez’s surrealistic novel One Hundred Years of Solitude. The town looks and feels antique, with its little fortresses and streets lined with venerable wooden edifices, rickety and humbled with age, with red-tiled eaves supported on ancient timber frames.
Baracoans have a good deal of Indian blood, identified by their short stature, olive-brown skins, and squared-off faces.
Aeropuerto Gustavo Rizo (tel. 021/42216) is on the west side of the bay. Cubana (Martí #181, tel. 021/45374; Mon.–Sat. 8 a.m.–6 p.m., Sun. 8 a.m.–noon) connects Baracoa with Havana twice weekly (CUC128) and with Santiago de Cuba once weekly (CUC30).
Buses arrive and depart the Terminal Interprovincial (Los Mártires, esq. Martí, tel. 021/43880). A Víazul bus for Baracoa departs Santiago de Cuba at 7:45 a.m. (CUC15), and Guantánamo at 9:30 p.m. (CUC9). Astro buses for Baracoa depart Havana on alternate days (CUC43.50 regular, CUC53 especial; 20 hours); and Santiago de Cuba at 6:40 a.m. (CUC9 regular, CUC11 especial).
You can rent cars from Havanautos (tel. 021/4-5343) at the airport; Transtur in Hotel La Habanera; and Vía (tel. 021/45135) at the Hotel Porto Santo and Hotel El Castillo.
Travel to BARACOA CUBA
