CubaPLUS Magazine

The rural community of Las Terrazas is a vividly colored painting on the slopes of the Sierra del Rosario, in the province of Artemisa, some 75 kilometers west of Havana: dedicated to promoting the preservation of nature, culture and sustainable development.

And yes, its inhabitants have the privilege of living in that environment, with a cheerful and idyllic visualization, nestled in the first biosphere reserve declared in Cuba with the approval of UNESCO in 1985.

At the end of the 1960s, the Las Terrazas project began with the aspiration of helping to restore a part of nature, with an area of approximately 5,000 hectares, which had been severely damaged by the intensive cultivation of coffee in the0 19th century. This included planting millions of trees, designing terraces for crops, and building a village that turned out to be modest, but beautiful and very comfortable, following environmental conservation guidelines.

Today the nearby habitats have been reborn because their inhabitants apply production methods that take care of the land and do not destroy it. This kind of ecologist and ecological village has attracted numerous foreign visitors and a community of local artistic creators, who established their studios or workshops there and work nonstop inspired by the environment and healthy social relationships, not boring at all and very creative.

One of the greatest seductions of a stay in Las Terrazas is an environment where beautiful native or pilgrim birds proliferate, its natural ponds for refreshing baths and the charms of the San Juan River that fertilizes its fields.

The small and seductive town has several art galleries, with exhibitions of local authors in various forms of plastic arts and as if that were not enough, although the coffee production of colonial times is no longer exploited there, anyone can come across on a tour with the ruins of old coffee plantations flourishing as orchards in the area.