Matanzas

Matanzas grew rich on sugar in the nineteenth century and built accordingly: a neoclassical theatre, a pharmacy museum with its original fittings, a cathedral and a set of bridges over the two rivers that cut through the city. It is also, with Havana, where rumba developed in the port and dockside neighbourhoods, and UNESCO's 2016 inscription of rumba names both cities. The Afro-Cuban traditions here are strong and continuous, and groups such as Los Muñequitos de Matanzas have carried them internationally.

History

Matanzas was founded on 12 October 1693 as San Carlos y San Severino de Matanzas, after a royal decree of 25 September 1690 ordered the bay and port settled by 30 families from the Canary Islands. Its name means "slaughters" and is said to recall an incident of 1510, when native fishermen ferrying 30 Spanish soldiers across a river overturned their boats and most of the soldiers, weighed down by armour, drowned. The region became one of Cuba's great sugar districts, worked by enslaved Africans whose numbers grew from 1,900 in 1792, about 30% of the population, to 53,331 in 1841, 62.7%, and 104,519 by the census of 1859; with its many free Afro-Cubans too, the city kept African traditions unusually strongly. Seventeen bridges over its three rivers earned it the name "Venice of Cuba", its poets the name "Athens of Cuba", and it is known as the birthplace of danzón and rumba (Wikipedia, Matanzas).

What you'll find

• Teatro Sauto - a neoclassical theatre of 1863 with its original interior, still in use.
• The pharmacy museum - a nineteenth-century French pharmacy with its jars, fittings and ledgers intact.
• The bridges - crossings over the Yumuri and San Juan rivers that give the city its shape.
• The rumba - the tradition the city shares with Havana, performed in patios and cultural centres.

When to go

November to April is the dry season. Rumba performances happen at cultural centres and in neighbourhood patios, usually on set days, and asking locally is the only reliable way to find them. The Yumuri valley outside town is best in the morning.

Before you go

The city is run down and many of the fine buildings are in poor condition, some closed for restoration for years at a time. It is often visited as a stop between Havana and Varadero, which does not do it justice. Performances aimed at tourists are not the same thing as a neighbourhood rumba.

Nearby

The Bellamar caves are just outside town, Varadero is east and Havana is west along the coast.

Key facts