Guardalavaca

Long before the resorts, this stretch of coast was Taíno country. At Chorro de Maíta archaeologists excavated a settlement and cemetery used from around 1300 to around 1550, with dozens of well-preserved burials; recent research suggests that Indigenous people were still living there many decades after Columbus arrived. Columbus himself is said to have visited this coast on his first voyage in 1492, and the wider area around Banes, whose name comes from the Taíno word for valley, was an important Taíno region before the conquest.

In the 16th and 17th centuries the coast sheltered corsairs and pirates and was the scene of the rescate trade, the smuggling in which local people swapped cattle hides with buccaneers for European goods. The name Guardalavaca, "guard the cow", is usually explained by that era: farmers are said to have shouted it when pirate ships appeared, to hide their cattle. Another story holds that it is a corruption of Guardalabarca, "guard the boat", after the Bahía de Naranjo, whose narrow inlet made a safe haven from pirates. The government has tried more than once to change the name and has so far failed.

The resort grew rapidly in the 1990s, when Cuba opened to foreign tourism after the collapse of the Soviet bloc, and hotels spread west to Playa Esmeralda, Playa Pesquero and Playa Yuraguanal. Hurricane Ike made landfall at Banes as a Category 4 storm in September 2008, and in October 2025 Hurricane Melissa damaged or destroyed around 992,000 homes in Guantánamo, Holguín and Santiago de Cuba provinces.

Guardalavaca's culture is shaped by tourism. Together with its neighbouring beaches it has become one of the most important resort areas in Cuba, behind only Havana and Varadero, and its hotels are run on the all-inclusive model. Daily life in the surrounding towns is far more traditionally Cuban, and the contrast between the two is part of the experience of staying here.

The deep Taíno past is the area's strongest cultural thread. The Chorro de Maíta site, declared a National Monument in 1991, displays its burials alongside a reconstructed village with life-sized models of native dwellings, and a museum of Taíno culture stands halfway between Guardalavaca and Banes.

Banes, the municipal seat, has its own claims to fame: the pianist Peruchín and the painter Waldo Díaz-Balart were born there, and so was Fulgencio Batista. The natural life of the coast is part of its identity too: the tocororo, Cuba's national bird, and hummingbirds live in the coastal forest, and the reefs hold tropical fish, starfish and lobsters.

Only a few Cubans live in Guardalavaca itself, because the resort is small; the area belongs to the municipality of Banes, which had about 67,000 inhabitants in 2022. Most of the people who work in the hotels are brought in by bus each day from Holguín, Banes and Rafael Freyre, and tourism is one of the municipality's mainstays, alongside the farming on which its economy chiefly rests.

Away from the beaches, life follows the rhythm of eastern Cuba: queues for rationed goods, long power cuts and water shortages, and families who depend on tourism wages, tips and remittances. Hurricanes are a recurring threat, and Melissa in 2025 caused heavy damage across Holguín province, where the region lost power and mobile phone service.

In recent years families near the beaches have opened their homes as casas particulares and small private restaurants, giving visitors a choice beyond the hotels. A shopping centre with craft stalls, travel agencies, car hire desks and a bank serves the resort area.

Most visitors eat at their hotel, but the food of the surrounding countryside is that of eastern Cuba. Congrí, rice cooked with red beans, is the eastern version of the national rice-and-beans dish, and pork roasted in the open is the centrepiece of any celebration. Fried plantains, yuca with mojo, a garlic and citrus dressing, and simple stews fill out everyday meals.

The paladares that have opened near the beaches serve traditional Cuban dishes alongside international ones, and fish and seafood appear when supplies allow. In Banes and the villages, meals are the plain, everyday cooking of eastern Cuba.

Coffee is drunk strong and sweet throughout the day, and rum is the drink of choice in the evening, whether in a mojito at a beach bar or neat with friends. Ingredients are often limited by the shortages that affect the whole country, so menus can be short and change from day to day.