Central Cuba
Central Cuba is the start of the country’s rural heartland with vast plantations spread out on either side of the Autopista Nacional highway that bisects the region, as it heads east from Havana. The provinces of Cienfuegos, Villa Clara and Sancti Spiritus offer some of the most spectacular variety of exciting experiences in nature that Cuba has to offer. The Escambray Mountains, home to UNESCO World Heritage Site Topes De Collantes National Park, are brimming with lush, tropical rain forests with waterfalls, and are a sanctuary for hundreds of breeds of amphibians, reptiles, mammals and birds. The coral reefs off the south coast and the minor archipelago of the keys (cayos) off the north seem to create the illusion that nature itself has offered perfection for the visitors to this breathtaking region of Cuba from the sea to the mountains. Central Cuba is home to two of Cuba’s most carefully conserved colonial and neoclassical cities, Trinidad (UNESCO World Heritage) and Cienfuegos that virtually transport you back in time and immerse you in their history and culture.
Cienfuegos
Cienfuegos was the smallest of Cuba’s Provinces. In 2011, a redistribution of boundaries made Havana and Isla de La Juventud smaller by definition. Don’t let the size of this province fool you; it is abundant with history, culture and some of the most exciting natural reserves and protected areas in all of Cuba. Although the economy has always been entirely dedicated to the growing and processing of sugar, the untouched landscape of the mountains offer spectacularly appealing scenery with waterfalls, and protected areas of great value for Cuban botanists, zoologists and ecologists. Just southeast of Cienfuegos lies Cayo Largo del Sur and the Canarreos Archipelago, a geological formation of roughly 350 islets teaming with marine life and the home to some of Cuba’s most important efforts in conservation and protection of natural resources. There are over 50 dive sites in the archipelago. The city of Cienfuegos is an impressive port city that was once the center for the sugar cane, mango, tobacco and coffee production and trade in the Caribbean.
Sancti Spiritus
There is almost every ecosystem of the Caribbean in this small but diverse province. It is flat on the south coast, mountainous in the west, home to mangroves and swamps in the southeast and has protected wetlands on the north. The largest man-made reservoir in Cuba is home to the only town in Cuba that has almost no 20th century architecture, Trinidad. Declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site, in Trinidad you can still almost sense the presence of 17th century Spanish garrisons and pirates in a place nearly frozen in time where the architecture dates back to the Spanish conquest during the 16th century.
Villa Clara
Diversity of experience and environment abound in Cuba’s central region and that fact is most evident in Villa Clara. The ultra-cultural capital city, Santa Clara, is guardian of the Cuban avant-garde, having the nation’s first drag show and its main rock festival. Meanwhile, the picturesque colonial town of Remedios and the beach-rimmed cays of the northern archipelago are experiencing Cuba’s most drastic contemporary tourist development. This land was originally inhabited by the Taino and Arawak people and centuries later was liberated by Che Guevara who is buried there. The province is indelibly stamped with Che’s legacy, but it will win your heart for hosting the nation’s most frenzied street party in Remedios, for the glimmering Escambray peaks and its lolling white-sand strands of beach in Cayo Santa María.
Camaguey
Camagüey province is the largest province in Havana spanning the center of the island from north coast to south coast. Vast plains and abundant palm trees characterize the countryside scenery. Two clusters of low mountains stand out in the flat landscape: Sierra de Cubitas, to the North, is remarkable for its canyons cutting it deeply and transversely as well as for the presence of a great amount of archaeologically relevant caves; Sierra de Najasa, to the South, features fossil wood remnants, a dazzling natural marvel. Right in the very center, as if emerging from the past, the capital city of Camaguey breaks through, full of magnificent bell towers and elegant old buildings with a labyrinthine web of streets, alleys and squares unparalleled in the Caribbean region, declared Cultural Heritage of Humanity, in 2008.