El Yunque de Baracoa

The Flat Topped Mountain That Is Baracoa'S Landmark, Generally Identified With The One Columbus Described In 1492, Climbed As A Guided Half Day Through Cacao Country · Baracoa, Guantanamo

Baracoa sits under a mountain with its top cut flat, a limestone and conglomerate table rising to something under six hundred metres, and on his first voyage in 1492 Columbus described a flat-topped mountain on this coast that is generally taken to be this one. It is the town's landmark and its emblem, visible from every street. Climbing it is a guided half day: out to a farm at the base, across a river, then up through cacao and coffee smallholdings into forest and finally onto the flat summit, which is not a peak so much as a plateau with the Atlantic on one side and the Toa valley on the other. The ground is steep, rooted and usually slick, because this is the wettest corner of the island, and the painted polymita snails are on the lower slopes - photograph them and leave them, because collecting is what has pushed the species to the edge. A guide is compulsory, climbs leave at first light before the summit clouds over, and there is a river at the bottom to swim in on the way back.

El Yunque, Baracoa, Guantanamo, Baracoa, Guantanamo, Cuba

Climbs start EARLY IN THE MORNING from a farm at the base, reached by road from Baracoa in about half an hour. A GUIDE IS COMPULSORY and is arranged the day before in Baracoa through a casa particular or the Ecotur office. The whole trip takes four to six hours including transport. HEAVY RAIN CLOSES THE ROUTE and this is the wettest region in Cuba.

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