Page 161 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - Cuba

CUBA REGION B Y REGION  159

CENTRAL CUBA – WEST

Matanzas • Cienfuegos • Villa Clara

The central-western provinces are the rural
heart of Cuba, with cultivated fields and a
gentle landscape, even where the plain gives
way to the Sierra del Escambray. Apart from
Varadero, the famous holiday resort, the main attractions in this
region are two lively towns – Santa Clara and Cienfuegos – and the
natural scenery of the Zapata peninsula and the Escambray mountains.

In 1509, while circling Cuba, the Spanish presence of African slaves. From the mid-
navigator Sebastián Ocampo caught sight 1500s to the mid-1700s, both coasts in this
of a bay on the northern Atlantic coast region had to face the serious threat of
inhabited by Siboney Indians. Their land pirate raids, against which the many
was requisitioned almost immediately redoubts, citadels and castles that are
and assigned to settlers from the Canary still visible along the coastline had very
Islands. The Indians opposed this injustice little effect. As a result, in 1689, 20 families
so fiercely that the city of Matanzas, from the village of Remedios, not far
which was built in that bay in the 1600s, from the sea, decided to move to the
probably owes its name to the memory interior to be at a safe distance from the
of a massacre (matanza) of Spaniards by buccaneers’ ships and cannons. In this
the natives. way the city of Santa Clara was founded.
Another bay, on the south coast, was Santa Clara, capital of Villa Clara province,
sighted by Columbus in 1494. The Jagua holds a special place in Cuban hearts
Indians living there were later wiped out, since it was the setting for heroic acts
but it wasn’t until 1819 that Cienfuegos by Che Guevara and his rebel forces.
was founded by Roman Catholic settlers On 28 December 1958, they captured
from the former French colonies of Haiti the area after what was to be the last
and Louisiana, who were granted this battle of the Revolution (see p52) before
territory to counterbalance the massive Batista fled.

Plaza de la Libertad surrounded by impressive buildings, Matanzas
Varadero, extremely popular with international holidaymakers

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