CubaPLUS Magazine

Main people, none other than the Marquis Don Gabriel María de Cárdenas, was decisive in the foundation in 1794 of the town of San Antonio Abad or San Antonio del Ariguanabo,  place that the charming city of the same name occupies today, one of the municipalities of the young province of Artemisa and very close to the Cuban capital.

The foundation was approved by Royal Decree, there, on fertile land bathed by the murmurous Ariguanabo River, an area abundant in precious woods, with lavish land for livestock and crops such as sugar cane. Since 1775, Canarian Juan Cabrera or Tío Cabrera had established a tavern with a famous name to this day.

The Marquis of Cárdenas de Monte Hermoso himself, his friends and the people who worked on the plantations, among whom the Canarians and some Mexican emigrants predominated, contributed to making the waters of the Ariguanabo River famous, on whose banks it existed since the 16th century a herd with that name, taken from the cacique or chief of an original aboriginal community, whose name was that of the river.

The town began to grow more noticeably in size from the beginning of the 20th century. But it never lost that touch of a peaceful, rural and healthy town on the outskirts. Although the waters of its river were not medicinal, they are healthy due to the beautiful wild and de-stressing environment that accompanies them, oblivious to the stale air that could be breathed in a large city, full of noise and excessive traffic circulation.

In addition, San Antonio de los Baños is also famous today as the country's Capital of Humor because for many years it has been the venue of the International Biennial of that artistic genre, since 1979.

It has a Museum of Humor, the only one of its kind in Latin America. Very close to the urban center stands the International Film and Television School (EICTV), opened in 1986 by the New Latin American Cinema Foundation, headed by Gabriel García Márquez.

Its first director was the prestigious Argentine creator Fernando Birri. With the initial support of Fidel Castro, the Cuban government and the Committee of Filmmakers of Latin America, it has served as a trainer of filmmakers from the continent and the so-called Third World, with absolute prestige.

It is part of the endearing things that make the children of the Ariguanabo region proud.