BARACOA TRAVEL INFO

Cuba Baracoa Beach

Peaceful Bay of Baracoa Cuba

BARACOA TRAVEL INFO

Baracoa (pop. 65,000) lies 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.

Getting to Baracoa

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.

If driving to Holguín, the coast is deeply rutted and potholed much of the way, with frequent and long sections of dirt and mud.

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BARACOA CUBA VACATION

BARACOA CUBA VACATIONS

In the eyes of many who visit, BARACOA is quite simply the most beautiful place in Cuba. Set on the island's southeastern tip and protected by a deep curve of mountains, its isolation has so far managed to protect it from some of the more pernicious effects of tourism creeping into other areas of the island. Surrounded by awe-inspiring countryside – whose abundance of cacao trees makes it the nation's chocolate manufacturer – Baracoa is fast becoming an absolute must on the travellers' circuit.

On a spot christened Porto Santo by Christopher Columbus, who arrived here in 1492 and, as legend has it, planted a cross in the soil, Baracoa was the first town to be established in Cuba, founded by Diego de Velázquez in 1511. The early conquistadors never quite succeeded in exterminating the indigenous population and direct descendants of the Taíno population are alive today, with Baracoa the only place in Cuba where they survive. Their legacy is also present in several myths and legends that are habitually told to visitors.

Half the fun of a visit to Baracoa is getting there. Before the revolution, the town was only accessible by sea, but the opening of La Farola, a road through the mountains that provides a direct link with Guantánamo, 120km away, changed all that and a flood of cars poured into town. Considered to be one of the triumphs of the revolution, the road was actually started during Batista's regime but was temporarily abandoned when he refused to pay a fair wage to the workers, and work was only resumed in the 1960s. Today, it makes for an amazing trip through the knife-sharp peaks of the Cuchillas de Baracoa mountains.

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