About Yateras

Yateras, located in the province of Guanatánamo, the easternmost province of Cuba, is a municipality or township consisting of several small towns and agricultural land. Like Boulder, Yateras is a mountainous region, but unlike Boulder, Yateras’ tropical landscape features swaying palms, citrus trees and coffee plants.

The entire municipality has a population of about 20,000 people, most of whom are engaged in agriculture. The main products are coffee, citrus fruit and bananas. The largest town in Yateras is Palenque, with a population of 5,000. The word “palenque” refers to a settlement created by run-away slaves, and in the slave era there were several of these small settlements in the remote and inaccessible mountains of Yateras. Today the population is a mix of the descendants of the original Taino Indians, African slaves, Spanish settlers, French coffee planters, and immigrants from the neighboring islands of Haiti and Jamaica. This cultural mix gave birth to a music typical of Yateras, “changüi”, which features the Spanish-influenced guitar, African marimbula and bongos, and Indian maracas and guayo. 

Click here to learn more about changüí.

Yateras is the home of "El Zoológico de Piedra", the Stone Zoo, created by coffee farmer turned sculptor, Angel Iñigo Blanco.

Click here to see photos of the Stone Zoo