Guantánamo City

Guantánamo - Other Cities and Attractions

Situated 90 km east of Santiago and a few km north of the bay of the same name. It has about 208,000 inhabitants and most of them live from producing sugarcane and cotton wool.

As with the rest of the province, Guantánamo’s local economy has been visibly affected by the US economic blockade. It is not a very touristical place, but worth a visit while passing it driving from Santiago de Cuba to Baracoa.

Guantánamo is nationally of some importance as an industrial city; as Cuba’s economy attempts to diversify, Guantánamo has undergone rapid growth. Unfortunately, the scarcity of government funds have resulted in cramped housing projects and neighborhoods.

The main reason to stop in this city is to visit the lookout at the Guantánamo Bay American Naval Base, which the US reserved as part of treaties signed at the end of the Spanish-American war. These days the base is the home to around 7,000 American servicemen. It is a self-sufficient entity with its own TV and radio station, water supply, medical, sports and general recreational facilities.

While Cuban President Fidel Castro considers the US military presence in Guantánamo to be an outrage, he is powerless to remove it. The US pays about USD 4,000/= annually as a lease for the land; Fidel Castro refuses to accept the money as a matter of national pride and integrity. This is about the only action he can take, however, since the US lease can be terminated by mutual consent.

Despite Castro’s ideological outrage, most Guantánamo residents are not concerned with the base and go about their daily lives as if there were no US military presence.

Guantanamera ("The girl from Guantanamo") is perhaps the best known Cuban song and that country’s most noted patriotic song. The lyrics are based on the first poem in the collection Simple Verses by Cuban nationalist poet José Martí, adapted by Julian Orban. The music was composed by Fernandez Dias.

The city seems to have 2 rather unfortunate unofficial emblems. One is a depot crammed with rusting buses that have no fuel, the other is an apartment tower that was to be showcase of efficient, prefabricated architecture.

City life revolves around Parque Marti, a pleasant leafy square shaded by laburnum trees ( glorious in March), and with an attractive golden-coloured church, the Iglesia Parroquial de Santa Catalina. Definetely worth while is to visit the attractive old houses on Calles Perez and Calixto Garcia.