Why this ride
A 165 km round trip from Río Guayabal de Yateras - roughly 4 h 46 in the saddle. The stops in between: El Salvador, Guantanamo and back through El Salvador.
CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Alejandro de Humboldt National Park and Guantanamo
Plan this ride
- Recorded distance
- 165 km
- Riding-time estimate
- 4 h 46
- Journey
- Recorded itinerary
Distance and timing basis
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Alejandro de Humboldt National Park
Alejandro de Humboldt National Park is generally considered the richest patch of nature in the whole Caribbean, and on a bike you approach it the hard way, through mining country and over some of the worst roads in Cuba. The park covers a huge block of mountains and rainforest in the far east of the island, between the nickel town of Moa and Baracoa, and runs down to the coast at Bahía de Taco, where a small visitor station organises guided walks and boat trips into the mangroves.
Read the complete Alejandro de Humboldt National Park write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Alejandro de Humboldt National Park is where the day begins. Next is El Salvador.
2. El Salvador
In the mountains north of Guantánamo, at the eastern end of Cuba, the Sierra del Purial and the hills around the town of El Salvador rise steeply from the dry coastal plain into a greener, cooler world of forest and coffee. At the end of the eighteenth century, French planters fleeing the slave revolution in Saint-Domingue, today's Haiti, settled in these mountains and built coffee plantations, with stone drying terraces, mills, aqueducts and grand houses, worked by enslaved Africans. The ruins of more than a hundred and seventy of these plantations survive in the Sierra Maestra and around Guantánamo, and they were listed by UNESCO in 2000 as the Archaeological Landscape of the First Coffee Plantations in the South-East of Cuba.
Read the complete El Salvador write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
El Salvador comes up 31 km in. Next is Guantanamo.
3. Guantánamo
Most people know Guantánamo for two things: a song and a naval base. The song, Guantanamera, about a peasant girl from Guantánamo, became one of the most famous Cuban tunes in the world, with verses adapted from the poetry of José Martí. The base, leased to the United States since 1903 on the shores of Guantánamo Bay, is a separate, fenced enclave south of the city, and it is not a place you can visit. The city itself, in the far east of Cuba, is a sleepy provincial capital with a grid of low, colourful houses, a central square and a strong musical tradition. It is the birthplace of changüí, a rustic ancestor of son, played with tres guitar, bongos and marímbula.
Read the complete Guantanamo write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
62 km in you reach Guantanamo. Next is back through El Salvador.
4. back through El Salvador
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete El Salvador write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
back through El Salvador, late in the day. Next is Alejandro de Humboldt National Park.
5. Alejandro de Humboldt National Park
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Alejandro de Humboldt National Park write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Back at Alejandro de Humboldt National Park. That is the ride.
Leg by leg
Alejandro de Humboldt National Park to El Salvador
Alejandro de Humboldt National Park → El Salvador is 45 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
El Salvador to Guantanamo
El Salvador → Guantanamo is 17 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Guantánamo to back through El Salvador
Guantánamo → back through El Salvador is 17 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through El Salvador to Alejandro de Humboldt National Park
back through El Salvador → Alejandro de Humboldt National Park is 45 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.