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Granma
A rich historical tradition, the fascinating contrast of its landscapes that combine sea, mountains and fertile plains, and its prodigal nature, constitutes attractiveness bigger than those which the tourist development of the province Granma has sustained, wide plain cut in two by the solid mountainous one of the Sierra Maestra, bathed by the Cauto River and extended on 8 362 km2 in the southeast portion of the island of Cuba.
The primary city, Bayamo, shows the condition of National Monument, and it was the second village founded by the Spanish settlers in 1513 as San Salvador de Bayamo; it showed the privilege of being hardly declared capital of the Republic in Arms ten days after beginning in La Demajagua the Cuban independent gest in October,10, 1868, and facing the imminent possibility of falling in hands of the hosts of the metropolises, their citizens solved to set it on fire in January 12 ,1869 to only leave them the ashes of the brave village.
Bayamo should be traveled in cars thrown by horses, the means of transport par excellence of a city that preserves in its historical center the square where for the first time the National Anthem was sung (October 20, 1868); the House of the Cuban Nationality, and the Parochial Church of San Salvador de Bayamo that conserves the only fresco zealously kept with patriotic reason in a church of the Island and it maintains open Dolores Chapel (1740) whose Baroque altarpiece figures among the most beautiful in the country. |
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The native house of the Founding Father of the Homeland, Carlos Manuel de Cespedes; Santo Domingo Convent, or the well-known Ventana de Luz Velázquez, where the first Cuban troubadour song, La Bayamesa, was sung are others of the places of interest of a town very near the one, which, in Dos Rios, a monument, remembers the exact place where the National Hero, José Martí, fell in combat in May 19, 1895.
In the vicinity of the town of Guisa, the botanical garden of Cupaynicú extends an invitation to the visitor, while the ruins of the genius La Demajagua imposes a stop in the Manzanillo, coastal city bathed by the waters of the Guacanayabo Gulf, surrounded of pirates' histories and whose Moorish arbor constitutes without doubts its more distinctive feature.
Two National Parks: the Desembarco Del Granma and the Sierra Maestra converge in the limits of this province. The first one of these squatters 27 545 hectares ,and their bigger attractiveness constitutes it, the system of marine carsick terraces, the better conserved of the archipelago and recognized by the UNESCO like one of the most representative at international level.
Morlotte Pit (of 77 meters deep and 52 of diameter) and the Fustete Cave are two of the most attractive accidents in this park, in which it have been located more than 200 species of the flora (10 exclusives of the place) and where it is conserved in the Ensenada del Real one of the few existent virgin forests in the country.
Eight paths and espeleo-archaeological, natural and historical routes, have been traced in areas of this National Park, among them the one that covers the 22 kilometers that mediate between the swamp of Las Coloradas and the reed bed of Alegria de Pio, indicating the route of the expeditionary ones of the Granma yacht that, led for Fidel Castro, December 2, 1956 disembarked for that area.
In the Great National Park Sierra Maestra (527 000 hectares) the main tourist resort of Granma is located: Marea del Portillo, a beach of calmed and clean waters, and brown sands, located in a bay that enhances its beauty when being protected by the Sierra elevations and surrounded of coconut trees and palms.
In Marea del Portillo there are located 17 places for the diving, the most attractive of which are placed , in fact, in the area of Cruz Cape, although to enjoy the fullness there, its stay there, besides the baths of sun and sea is indispensable to traffic for the paths that drive to the jumps of water of the rivers Cilantro and Las Yaguas, and to foresee a trip to Blanco Key, a tiny island located to only 500 meters of the beach that who know it they coincide in classifying it as the perfect place for romantic and in love. |
