Camagüey & the Centre-East

The Spanish founded Santa María del Puerto del Príncipe on the north coast in 1514 and moved it inland, reaching its present site in 1528, where it became the town now called Camagüey. The surrounding grasslands suited cattle, and for centuries the town was a ranching centre selling hides and meat, often through smuggling. The pirate Henry Morgan sacked it in 1668, and local tradition says its crooked street plan was meant to confuse raiders, though many locals say the city simply grew without a plan.

Camagüey was a stronghold of the independence cause in the 19th century. Its landowners joined the Ten Years' War in 1868, and Ignacio Agramonte, a Camagüey lawyer, led the rebel cavalry until he was killed in battle in 1873. To contain the rebellion, the Spanish army built the Trocha, a fortified line of forts and ditches across the island from Júcaro to Morón, in what is now Ciego de Ávila. Las Tunas was burned more than once during the independence wars, including by rebels in 1876 to keep it from Spanish hands.

In the early 20th century large sugar mills and railways spread across the eastern plains, and the region became one of Cuba's main sugar and cattle producers. After the revolution the estates were nationalised, and from the late 1980s the state built causeways to the northern cays and turned Cayo Coco and Cayo Guillermo into resort islands.

Camagüeyanos are proud of their city's colonial past and of its famous sons, among them Agramonte, the poet Nicolás Guillén and the physician Carlos Finlay, who identified the mosquito that spreads yellow fever. The city's symbol is the tinajón, a huge clay jar once used to collect rainwater, and local lore says a visitor who drinks from one will never leave. The Ballet de Camagüey is one of the country's leading dance companies, and the San Juan carnival in June is the city's big party.

This is cowboy country. The guajiros of the plains are skilled riders, and rodeos and cattle fairs are part of rural life. Las Tunas is a centre of the punto guajiro, the improvised sung verse of the countryside, and holds the Jornada Cucalambeana in honour of the 19th-century poet Juan Cristóbal Nápoles Fajardo, known as El Cucalambé.

Ciego de Ávila, a newer town, has its own traditions: the town of Morón has a statue of a rooster as its symbol, and nearby Majagua and other farming towns hold country festivals. Catholic churches in Camagüey, a city of many churches, remain centres of community life alongside Santería.

Camagüey, with about 330,000 people, is Cuba's third-largest city and the region's commercial, university and transport centre. Ciego de Ávila and Las Tunas are provincial capitals of well over 100,000 each, and Morón, Florida, Nuevitas and Puerto Padre are the main smaller towns.

The economy rests on cattle, dairy and sugar, though many mills have closed. Ciego de Ávila is a fruit-growing province, known especially for pineapples and citrus, and Nuevitas has a port and industry. Tourism on the northern cays is the largest source of hard currency, and many workers travel from Morón and Ciego de Ávila to jobs in the resorts.

Life in the towns follows the national pattern of low wages, rationing, blackouts and queues, and horse-drawn carts and bicycle taxis remain common transport. Like the rest of Cuba, the region has lost many young adults to emigration in recent years.

The centre-east eats the national staples of rice, beans, pork, yuca and plantain, with more beef and dairy than elsewhere thanks to the cattle ranches, and the ajiaco, a thick stew of meat, root vegetables, plantain and corn, is cooked in giant communal pots during Camagüey's San Juan festivities.

Ciego de Ávila is proud of its pineapples, and fruit such as mangoes, guavas and citrus is sold from roadside stands in season. Along the north coast, fishing villages serve fish and seafood, and on the cays the resorts serve international buffets with lobster at times.

Coffee is drunk strong and sweet from small cups throughout the day, rum is the drink of celebrations, and guarapo, fresh cane juice, is sold in the sugar country.

Camagüey's centre is the region's cultural highlight. Its maze of streets opens onto small squares: the Plaza San Juan de Dios, with its hospital church and low colonial houses, the Plaza del Carmen, and the church of La Merced. The house where Ignacio Agramonte was born stands in the old centre, and the city's many churches and tinajones fill a long day of walking.

The northern cays of the Jardines del Rey archipelago are the region's beach country. Cayo Coco has long beaches, lagoons with flamingos and resort hotels, and Cayo Guillermo, to the west, has Playa Pilar, named after Hemingway's boat, whose novel Islands in the Stream is set partly in these waters. Near Morón, the Laguna de la Leche is a large lake used for fishing and boating. On the Camagüey coast, Playa Santa Lucía has a long beach and an offshore reef.

Las Tunas is a small city of monuments and sculptures, with a provincial museum in the old town hall, and the province's north coast has quiet beaches around Puerto Padre. To the south, the Jardines de la Reina cays, a national park, have some of Cuba's best-preserved coral reefs, with sharks, groupers and mangroves.