Santo Domingo

Top choice


This tiny village nestles in a deep green valley beside the deliciously clean Río Yara. Communally it provides a wonderful slice of peaceful Cuban campesino life that has carried on pretty much unchanged since Fidel and Che prowled these shadowy mountains in the 1950s. If you decide to stick around, you can get a taste of rural socialism at the local school and medical clinic, or ask at Villa Santo Domingo about the tiny village museum (admission CUC$1; hours vary).

Locals offer horseback riding (CUC$10 per hour), pedicure treatments, hikes to natural swimming pools and some classic old first-hand tales from the annals of revolutionary history.


Lonely Planet's must-see attractions

Nearby attractions

1. Alto del Naranjo

1.77 MILES

All trips into the park begin at the end of the near-vertical, corrugated-concrete access road at Alto del Naranjo (after Villa Santo Domingo the road…

2. Comandancia de la Plata

2.22 MILES

Topping a crenelated mountain ridge amid thick cloud forest, this pioneering camp was established by Fidel Castro in 1958 after a year on the run in the…

3. Gran Parque Nacional Sierra Maestra

4.7 MILES

Comprising a sublime mountainscape of verdant peaks and humid cloud forest, and home to honest, hardworking campesinos (country folk), Gran Parque…

4. Museo Combate de la Plata

8.5 MILES

Five kilometers west of Las Cuevas (which is 40km west of El Uvero) is this small museum at La Plata, just below the highway. The first successful…

5. Yara

16.16 MILES

A small town amid vast fields of sugarcane, Yara is barely mentioned in most travel literature, but several important chapters of Cuban history took place…

6. Criadero de Cocodrilos

21.47 MILES

The nearby Cauto River delta is home to a growing number of wild crocodiles, so it's no surprise to encounter one of Cuba's half dozen or so crocodile…

7. Museo Histórico La Demajagua

24.24 MILES

Ten kilometers south of Manzanillo is the moving sight of the sugar estate of Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, whose outcry, known as Grito de Yara, and the…

8. Celia Sánchez Monument

25.07 MILES

Seven blocks southwest of the park lies Manzanillo's most evocative sight. Built in 1990, this terracotta-tiled staircase embellished with colorful…

  • placement: superzone
  • path: Destinations/POIs/superzone
  • possible size: [970, 250], [970, 90], [728, 90], [1, 1],
  • targeting:
    {
      "url": "cuba/gran-parque-nacional-sierra-maestra/attractions/santo-domingo/a/poi-sig/1334690/1315122",
      "position": "superzone"
    }