Gran Piedra and the Coffee Plantations

UNESCO World Heritage Site (Archaeological Landscape Of The First Coffee Plantations In The South East Of Cuba, 2000); Ruins Of Plantations Built By French Planters Who Fled The Haitian Revolution · Santiago de Cuba, Santiago de Cuba

When the enslaved population of Saint-Domingue rose in 1791 and made Haiti, the French planters who survived went east - and a great many of them came here, to the mountains behind Santiago, where they cleared the slopes and rebuilt their coffee estates with enslaved labour brought with them. UNESCO listed the remains in 2000: a hundred and seventy-one plantation sites across these hills, with terraces, aqueducts, drying floors and the ruins of the houses, of which the restored Cafetal La Isabelica is the one you can walk through. It is a landscape built out of one revolution and worked by people who had every reason to start another. Above it sits the Gran Piedra itself, a volcanic boulder the size of a building perched at over twelve hundred metres, reached by four hundred and fifty-four steps, with a view that on a clear day is said to reach Haiti and Jamaica, which closes the circle on the whole story.

La Gran Piedra y Cafetal La Isabelica, Santiago de Cuba, Santiago de Cuba, Santiago de Cuba, Cuba

The Gran Piedra and the Cafetal La Isabelica museum keep daylight hours with a small charge; La Isabelica has closed for periods and should be confirmed. The road up from Santiago is steep and narrow and takes about an hour. Cloud frequently covers the summit in the afternoon. Transport depends on fuel, as everywhere.

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