Why this ride
From Río Guayabal de Yateras it runs 367 km to Río Guayabal de Yateras; allow about 8 h 03 of riding. The stops in between: El Salvador, Niceto Pérez, La Gran Piedra and back through Niceto Pérez.
CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Alejandro de Humboldt National Park and La Gran Piedra
Plan this ride
- Recorded distance
- 367 km
- Riding-time estimate
- 8 h 03
- 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 39 km in. Next is Niceto Pérez.
3. Niceto Pérez
Niceto Pérez is a rural municipality in the hills just west of the city of Guantánamo, in the far east of Cuba, a region of sugar cane, small farms and mountains rising towards the Sierra Maestra and the coffee country of the Gran Piedra. It is not a place that features in many guidebooks, and that is part of its interest. The surrounding hills hold the remains of the coffee plantations established in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries by French planters fleeing the revolution in Saint-Domingue, now Haiti, and the archaeological landscape of those first coffee plantations in the south east of Cuba is listed by UNESCO.
Read the complete Niceto Pérez write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
78 km in you reach Niceto Pérez. Next is La Gran Piedra.
4. La Gran Piedra
La Gran Piedra means simply the Great Stone, and that is exactly what waits at the top: an enormous boulder sitting on the crest of the Sierra de la Gran Piedra, over twelve hundred metres above sea level and roughly twenty kilometres east of Santiago de Cuba. You climb several hundred stone steps from the road to reach it, and a metal ladder takes you onto the rock itself. On a clear morning the view runs over forested ridges to the Caribbean on one side and inland across the Sierra Maestra on the other, and people say that on the clearest nights you can see the lights of Jamaica and Haiti.
Read the complete La Gran Piedra write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
La Gran Piedra, about halfway. Next is back through Niceto Pérez.
5. back through Niceto Pérez
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Niceto Pérez write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
back through Niceto Pérez sits at 155 km, about halfway. Next is back through El Salvador.
6. 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 comes up 194 km in. Next is Alejandro de Humboldt National Park.
7. 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
Alejandro de Humboldt National Park closes the day.
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 Niceto Pérez
El Salvador → Niceto Pérez is 25 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Niceto Pérez to La Gran Piedra
Niceto Pérez → La Gran Piedra is 47 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
La Gran Piedra to back through Niceto Pérez
La Gran Piedra → back through Niceto Pérez is 47 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Niceto Pérez to back through El Salvador
back through Niceto Pérez → back through El Salvador is 25 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.
More motorcycle rides nearby
- Niceto Pérez and Yateras (134 km) · 183 km