CubaPLUS Magazine

Famous throughout Cuba, the unique Valle del Yumurí is one of the emblematic environments and landscapes of the largest of the Antilles, perhaps because in its evergreen flora, with an idyllic view in the distance, it dominates a profusion of haughty royal palms (the tree national), with their plumes reaching the sky.

Surrounded on all sides, except for its western side, by small mountains, some up to 150 meters, it is a large plain of about 80 hectares, which manages to reach a width of up to 8 km at its widest part. It is located north of the province of Matanzas, in the so-called Havana-Matanzas Heights, very close, approximately one km, from the city of Los Puentes or Atenas de Cuba.

According to tradition, its lands have always been cultivated, especially sugar cane, a crop of great weight in the national economy, adorned by large quantities of the unique royal palm.
In addition to its beautiful endowment of palms, the endemic plant species Melocactus matanzanus is found in its flora, in an environment in which archaeological remains of ancient aboriginal communities that inhabited the island before the arrival of Columbus have been found.

Precisely one of the versions on the origin of the name of the Valley: Yumurí, refers to the presence of Taínos in the environment.

According to an old myth, the word Yumurí expresses the sound of the cry given by the natives when they jumped from one of their cliffs, when they preferred to lose their lives rather than continue to endure captivity and the cruel treatment of the colonizers.

Some experts believe that Yumurí was an imitation, in the aboriginal way, of the Castilian phrase &I die", to make himself understood by the exploiters. In an act of freedom they shouted and threw themselves into the void. A beautiful legend without documentary basis.

The natural beauty of the valley is enhanced by the different forms of relief: plains and high hills, where the Yumurí and Bacunayagua rivers follow their course. Precisely one of the most splendid views of the valley is achieved from the legendary Mirador de Bacuyanagua, the highest bridge in Cuba.