Page 245 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - Cuba

EASTERN CUBA  243

i Costa Sur
The American Naval Base
Guantánamo. Road Map F4.
In 1901 the US – the victors, together with the Cubans,
Travelling eastwards from in the war against Spain – obliged the Cuban Republic to
Guantánamo, visitors will pass accept the Platt Amendment (see p49), whereby the latter had
through the most barren part to grant the US Navy the right to install a naval base in the
of Cuba, where the climate is bay of Guantánamo. The US was granted a lease of a minimum
desert-like because of the hot of 99 years in 1934. For this occupancy, the American
winds blowing here. This is a government pays $2,000 per year, though it is said that the
unique area on the island where Cuban government has regularly returned this sum to the
US since 1959. In the past the situation has taken on the
cactuses and succulents are dramatic overtones of the Cold War and highlighted a difficult
the main vegetation. The coast state of co-existence. Inside the base, menial jobs are done by
road, tucked in between the Puerto Ricans, the wives of the servicemen do their shopping in
mountains and the blue sea, is supermarkets stocked with food flown in from the US, and there
spectacular. The rocky coast has are two English-language radio stations and one TV station.
tiny coves with pebble beaches, The base, US territory in Cuba, covers 110 sq km (43 sq miles),
home to an assortment of and has two runways for military planes. The whole area is
seashells and Poly mita picta surrounded by 27 km (17 miles) of fence.
snails (see p249).

o La Farola
Guantánamo. Road Map F4.
Cajobabo – a southern coastal
town where José Martí and
Máximo Gómez landed to begin
the 1895 war against Spain –
marks the beginning of La
Farola, a spectacular 49-km
(30-mile) road that wends its The American base at Guantánamo
way upwards over the
mountains to Baracoa, through
vege tation that becomes more of “flying highway”. The road of the Sierra Maestra, lush
and more luxuriant as the acquired its name (farola means valleys, tropical forests, pine
coast is left behind. beacon) because in some groves, banana plantations,
Until 1959 Cajobabo could stretches it looks like a beam, rivers, waterfalls and royal palm
only be reached by ship. suspended in air. It is regarded trees. The luxuriant vegetation
In order to connect it to the as one of the great engineering seems to swallow up the road
rest of the island, in the 1960s feats of recent Cuban history. in places. Along the road, people
engineers excavated sections of This highway and the sell local produce such as
mountainside in the Sierra del periodic viewing points offer coffee, red bananas, chocolate
Purial in order to create a kind incredible views of the peaks and cucurucho (see p267).

View from one of the observation points along La Farola road

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