Pico Turquino

Pico Turquino National Park was established in 1980 in south-eastern Cuba, in the Sierra Maestra, between the provinces of Granma and Santiago de Cuba, and protects some 229 km². Its summit, Pico Turquino, reaches 1,974 metres and is the highest point in the country.

The range concentrates a very high diversity because of its gradient and its isolation: semi-deciduous forest at lower altitudes, montane rainforest in the middle belt and cloud forest with tree ferns and mosses on the summits, with a high proportion of Cuban endemics. It is home to the tocororo, or Cuban trogon, the national bird, the zunzuncito, or bee hummingbird, the smallest bird in the world, and the almiquí, or Cuban solenodon, a nocturnal insectivore of a very ancient and very rare lineage.

The massif carries a historical charge that is central to Cuba. Between 1958 and 1959 the Comandancia General de La Plata was set up on its slopes, Fidel Castro's headquarters during the guerrilla war, preserved today as a national monument inside the park, with the campaign house, the hospital and the Radio Rebelde transmitter. On the summit stands a bust of José Martí placed there in 1953, and the ascent of Turquino has combined natural appeal with symbolic weight ever since.