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American Cemetery, declared a National Monument on March 13, 2019

The Columbia or American cemetery declared a National Monument, on March 13, 2019, when the 94th anniversary of the ratification of the Hay-Quesada Treaty, which restored Cuba's sovereignty over the formerly Isle of Pines, was commemorated on the Isle of Youth .
In 1902 Isle of Pines Land and Development founded the town of Columbia, located 12 kilometers from Nueva Gerona, and five years later they created the Columbia CemeterySociety, exclusively for US citizens who died on the spot, a function maintained after the town and its original conditions disappeared. of the massive Yankee colonization.
The first inhumation occurred in 1907 when Freeman Cooper died while the last buried citizen was StefaniaKoening, in 1981.
The necropolis is of the garden type, it has 135 lots each with a capacity for six or eight burials, and generally in this memorial park rest the mortal remains of more than 300 of those settlers, belonging to all social classes.
The churchyard transcends as the most important material testimony of a political and diplomatic battle won by Cuba on March 13, 1925, one of the episodes of the struggle for our sovereignty and an example of reaffirmation of anti-imperialism, independence and Cubanness.
The reasons are reported in Resolution number four, in which the Columbia Cemetery or the American Cemetery, located on the Columbia highway, kilometer 12, Juan Delio Chacón Popular Council, special municipality of Isla de Isla, is officially declared a National Monument of the Republic of Cuba. youth.

An average of 37,500 people attend the neurological restoration and rehabilitation room on the Isle of Youth each month, which includes baths in the hot springs of Santa Fe.
AukiHimairo's death was not well regarded by the gods and they granted the young man eternal life by turning her body into a fountain with healing properties, according to the story in 1776 Alexandre Olivier Esquemeling.
The corsair doctor, upon learning of the prodigy, which made news in the Caribbean, told AukiHimairo what had happened, who refused to massacre other tribes of Cuba, disobeyed his mandate, who had sent him as captain to lead a warrior expedition.
Accused of being a traitor, he was killed by his own father, the chief Takamena, who left him stiff on the banks of the river, where he was found by friendly hands who, when trying to lift him, saw how the corpse was transformed into a source of warm and crystalline water.
Esquemeling also alluded to the benefits of this water source, baptized by the Spanish in 1870 as Santa Rita, emanating from the body of a son of Siguanea, one of the first toponymics of today's Isle of Youth.
Other Cuban doctors such as Ramón Piña and Pezuela (1849), José de la Luz Hernández (1857) and Manuel Negro and Fernández corroborated what the English adventurer affirmed, water is effective in venereal, liver, digestive, pulmonary and epidermal diseases, among others .
AukiHimairo still benefits those who come from different latitudes of the planet and Cuba to La Fe, some 16 kilometers from Nueva Gerona to regain their health by drinking or bathing in the warm fountain with healing properties.

The popular voice says that residents of the Siguanea have often been frightened by the presence of fluorescent lights or the gloomy moan of those who may have been killed by harquebusses or bled to death by the attack of the Rhombifer crocodiles.

La Siguanea, located in the southwest of the Isla de la Juventud, 42 kilometers from Nueva Gerona, hides the most precious heritage of the pirates, who operated in this part of the Antillean Caribbean, until the early 19th century.
They, from their spectral condition, zealously care for their precious trophies, some today in the deep waters of the cove or under the roots of the tangled vegetation of the place, where not a few died after the burial of the booties.
Residents of the area say that they have often been frightened by the presence of fluorescent lights or the gloomy whimper of those who may have been killed by harquebusses or bled to death.

Baptized as the tree of love, the curious spawn of nature gives anacahuita-shaped mangoes in the Jungle of Jones, Isle of Youth.

On the Isle of Youth, about 17 kilometers from Nueva Gerona, in a place known as La Jungla, two trunks with the same vigor hug each other from the roots, to provide mythical fruits each summer.
Baptized as the tree of love, the curious spawn of nature that gives mangoes in the form of anacahuita, is the center of a singular ritual, where they are blessed who, after depositing a coin in the shade of the forest, border the plant in search of a wish.

That, too, is the preamble to a pathway that leads to the confessed passion of husband and wife Harry and Hellen Jones for biodiversity.
They, of American origin, settled in this part of the Cuban soil in 1902 to grow one of the most exotic places on the island, where almost twenty birds are housed, among which the thrush, the parrot and the zunzuncito predominate.
Plants brought from different parts of the world come together here, according to a project in coordination with the US Department of Agriculture, which at that time had among its purposes to study the adaptability of these species to the tropical climate.
Thus, the one that constituted the second botanical garden of Cuba after that of Cienfuegos (1901), from the 30s of the last century greened and became a health tourist destination for those who needed to rest or eliminate stress under the yamagua, cocoa or ocuje.
Hellen became a widow in 1938 and touched by mysticism she had as unconditional company from that moment a majá from Santamaría, who added fame to the place.
The old woman died violently 22 years later and with her the charms of the forest, which Tomás Betancourt López, Head of the current Forest Estate, revives by immortalizing the legend of the now ancient tree of love, where the passion of Hellen and Harry.