El Salto del Hanabanilla, also known as Hanabanilla, is a

Cuba Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbea ...

n village and ''consejo popular'' ("people's council", i.e. hamlet) of the municipality of

Manicaragua Manicaragua () is a municipality and mountain town in the Villa Clara Province of Cuba. It is located in the Escambray Mountains at the southern part of Villa Clara, bordering the provinces of Cienfuegos to the west and Sancti Spíritus to the ea ...

Villa Clara Province Villa Clara is one of the provinces of Cuba. It is located in the central region of the island bordering with the Atlantic at north, Matanzas Province by west, Sancti Spiritus Province by east, and Cienfuegos Province on the South. Villa Clara ...

.El Salto del Hanabanilla
on EcuRed As of 2014 the town has 137 homes making up a total of 436 inhabitants. Is a mountain resort famous for the homonym lake.

History

El Salto del Hanabanilla was originally settled by Taino people; so far 35 aboriginal villages have been discovered around this area. After the

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Cana ...

colonization it remained virtually untouched until the early 19th century, when it was finally settled in 1802 by Galician families trying to foment the production of tobacco and coffee and create cattle farms. The idea to create a man-made reservoir is also quite old; it was first proposed in 1868, in order to efficiently supply the port city

Cienfuegos Cienfuegos (), capital of Cienfuegos Province, is a city on the southern coast of Cuba. It is located about from Havana and has a population of 150,000. Since the late 1960s, Cienfuegos has become one of Cuba's main industrial centers, especial ...

with fresh water and electricity for its electrical tramway system. But it wasn't until 1908 when it finally was approved. Construction of the dam itself started in 1959 and finished in 1963, along with the construction of a clinic and a school in the centre of the village, nearby the dam. A 126-room hotel of the same name was built in July 1975 using a Cuban adaptation of the Russian construction system popular in the 1970s to create schools and hotels through the island. This precast technology is named Girón, after the same location where the

Bay of Pigs Invasion The Bay of Pigs Invasion (, sometimes called ''Invasión de Playa Girón'' or ''Batalla de Playa Girón'' after the Playa Girón) was a failed military landing operation on the southwestern coast of Cuba in 1961 by Cuban exiles, covertly fina ...

took place in 1961. It has been recently restored and it is the deployment point for nature tourism and fresh water bass fishing activities around the surrounding mountains.

Geography

Located in the northern area of the

Escambray Mountains The Escambray Mountains () are a mountain range in the central region of Cuba, in the provinces of Sancti Spíritus, Cienfuegos and Villa Clara. Overview The Escambray Mountains are located in the south-central region of the island, extending a ...

, by the

Hanabanilla Lake El Salto del Hanabanilla, also known as Hanabanilla, is a Cuban village and ''consejo popular'' ("people's council", i.e. hamlet) of the municipality of Manicaragua, Villa Clara Province.Hanabanilla Dam The Hanabanilla Dam is an embankment dam on the Hanabanilla River near the village of El Salto del Hanabanilla in Villa Clara Province, Cuba. The purpose of the dam is to provide water for irrigation and municipal uses and to generate hydroelec ...

, the village is surrounded by mountain tropical rain forest receiving a mean of 1,346.3 millimeters of rain water during rainy season (approximately 130 days of rain). Many rivers and brooks deposit fresh water into the lake being the largest ones Negro (Literally Black), Arimao, Caonao, Mabujina, Hanabanilla, Jibacoa and Guanayara, except for the first one -Black River- the rest of the streams and most of the geography around the area retain the original Taino

Arawak The Arawak are a group of indigenous peoples of northern South America and of the Caribbean. Specifically, the term "Arawak" has been applied at various times to the Lokono of South America and the Taíno, who historically lived in the Greater ...

names. Hanabanilla means "A basket full of Gold" in Taino language. The humidity around the lake forest has a mean of 82,73% water vapor which aids the evergreen look of the area year round. Linked to the Manicaragua-Cumanayagua road (8 km far) by a dead end road to the lake. A street crossing a

dam A dam is a barrier that stops or restricts the flow of surface water or underground streams. Reservoirs created by dams not only suppress floods but also provide water for activities such as irrigation, human consumption, industrial use, a ...

links its populated area to the nearby "Hotel Hanabanilla". In front of the village is located an islet. El Salto del Hanabanilla is close to the borders of

Cienfuegos Province Cienfuegos () is one of the provinces of Cuba. The capital city of the province is also called Cienfuegos and was founded by French settlers in 1819. Overview Until 2011 Cienfuegos was the smallest province in Cuba (excluding the city of Hav ...

and is 21 km far from

, 22 from

Cumanayagua Cumanayagua () is a municipality and town in the Cienfuegos Province of Cuba. It is located in a valley near the Guamuhaya Mountains (usually these mountains are referred as Escambray Mountains, east of Cienfuegos, the provincial capital. Histor ...

, 39 from

Jibacoa Jibacoa, or more properly Playa Jibacoa, is a fishing village in the Mayabeque Province of Cuba. It is located in the municipality of Santa Cruz del Norte, at the mouth of the Jibacoa River, 60 km east of Havana. The settlement was founded ...

(in the southeastern shore of the lake), 50 from

, 52 from Santa Clara and 81 from

Trinidad Trinidad is the larger and more populous of the two major islands of Trinidad and Tobago. The island lies off the northeastern coast of Venezuela and sits on the continental shelf of South America. It is often referred to as the southernmos ...

Gallery

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hanabanilla Populated places in Villa Clara Province Tourist attractions in Villa Clara Province Populated places established in 1802 1802 establishments in North America 1802 establishments in the Spanish Empire

History

Geography

Gallery

See also

References

External links