Even though flying into Baracoa can be a nailbiter, it’s the quickest way to reach the oldest colonial city in the Americas. 
Alternatively, you can take the four hour ride from Santiago along the scenic La Farola (The Latern) switch-back road through the Sierra de Purial Mountains. Before the road was built in the 1960s to link Baracoa to the rest of the island, the only way to reach the city was via the water.
The drive on La Farola can be slow and acrid especially if you're trapped behind a slow moving, exhaust spewing truck or bus. Travelers can be assured of outstanding mountain vistas along the way. Near the summit, there is a smelly rest stop and a small shop that sells water, coffee and fruit. A climb up the overlook tower will reward you with a view of both the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantc Ocean. It's the only place in Cuba where both bodies of water can be seen from the same spot.
It was at Baracoa that locals claim to be the October 27, 1492 debarkation point for Christopher Columbus on his first voyage to the Americas. They make that claim based on Columbus’ journal entry where he writes about landing on “the most beautiful land man’s eyes have ever seen” and describes a “high square mountain which seemed to be an island”. Since no other mountain in Cuba fits that description, Baracoans are inclined to believe that he was writing about El Yunque, the 575 meter / nearly 1,900 feet flat-top mountain just northeast of town.
However, the people of Gibara, a coastal city nearly 200 miles northwest of Baracoa, as well as most historians say that Columbus first landed in the Americas in Bay of Gibara. No one really knows where Columbus first set foot on land in Cuba since his journal 
entry describing his landing is preserved only in extract and, according to Irene Wright’s book, The Early History of Cuba, “reflects the confusion which existed in the discoverer’s mind as he sailed along the unknown coast of an island which is on the other side of the world from where he was supposed to be.”
Fast forward nearly two decades during which time the King of Spain heard that there was gold in Cuba. To determine if the rumors were true, in 1511 he commissioned a Cuban expedition led by Spanish conquistador Diego de Velázquez to “investigate its mineral potentialities.” Velázquez and his small army established a base of operations in a lush green spot on the eastern coast of Cuba and gave the new settlement the name of Nuestra Señora de la Asuncion.
Of course, the aboriginal indians, the original inhabitants of the area, already called the place Baracoa, an Indian word meaning “beside the sea”. Hatuey, the former cacique or chief of La Espanola de Hayti, had fled to eastern part of Cuba to escape the hardship that white Haytian Christians imposed on his former countrymen. In his adopted land, Hatuey who had established himself as a chieftain of importance, assured the locals that they would suffer a similar fate unless they resisted the white invaders. Soon after his arrival Velázquez was faced with such hostility from the natives that he and his men hunted them into the mountains. Even though Chief Hatuey was betrayed and eventually captured and burned at the stakes, resistance from the indigenous people continued under the leadership of a new chief.
In the years that followed Baracoa outlasted Nuestra Señora de la Asuncion as the settlement's name which was given the honor of being named the first capital of Cuba. Velázquez established himself in the city then went on to found the remaining six of Cuba’s seven original cities including Santiago. In 1523 the capital was moved to Santiago, a city that was more accessible to the rest of the island. Velázquez’s abandonment of the struggling municipality led to its decline in the years that followed.
Even though Baracoa had an auspicious beginning as Cuba’s first city and its first capital, it was just too isolated from the rest of the island. Fortunately for current day travelers, that isolation caused the city to maintain much of its authenticity. Today Baracoa is a modest city of one and two story buildings and a population of around 80,000 residents. In recent years, tourists in search of the authentic Cuba have found their way into the city via daily flights from Havana, Santiago and perhaps a couple of other Cuban cities or via the scenic switchback mountain road.
Baracoa and its tourist attractions.