Santiago de Cuba is the country's second more important city and its most Caribbean. The Santiagueros call it Chago.

Governor Diego Velazquez founds it in 1512. Santiago was the first capital of Cuba, and form its port set sail the ships that, with Hernan Cortes in command, began the conquest of Mexico.

Santiago is music and rum. It is the first son and the first bolero; those musical rhythms that still make people dance in all the world's languages.

Santiago is the carnival (July 25) and the procession moving through its steep streets, to the sound of the leather drums and the cowbell, and a wind instrument called the Chinese trumpet, which invites those, who listen to move their whole bodies.

It is Chinese in name only, because its origin is here, in Santiago and Chago, from its musical and cheerful Black rumba aficionados.

Santiago is to speak singing. It is Criolla women, who almost dance as they walk along the sidewalks to the beat of the hustle and bustle of the city, which reaches its peak of activity on Enramadas street and Cespedes park, next to the Cathedral and the Hotel Casagranda, and extends toward the Morro castle at the entrance of the bay.

This area has been designated by UNESCO as a World Heritage site, due to the beauty of its architecture, which before our very eyes presents an impressive amphitheatre of colonial flavor. The typical Santiago-style homes are arranged around a patio with arches in the middle, and sport vibrant and cheerful colors that give life to the steep, narrow and stone-stepped streets, framed with the red tiles of their roofs.

Santiago is the Prague Baconao, with the green of the mountain ranges within arm's reach and the blue of the Caribbean at one's feet. It is the Caney, with its exquisite and juicy tropical fruits, the refreshing oriental Pru, an indispensable drink to alleviate the heat of the city.

It is people able to prepare a goat Chilindron in a few minutes, to invite any recently arrived guest to have lunch or dinner. The Chilindron isa traditional broth, made with goat meat and served with Ayacas (sweet corn meat tamales wrapped in corn leaves) and Tostones, green bananas fried in boiling fat.

Santiago is a tres, a small, six-string guitar specific to Cuba, a guitar and some Maracas to intone the song of love of the traditional trova that doesn't age, and that is renewed in each dawn of serenades. And Santiago is also visiting the city's Cabaret Tropicana.

The poet Manuel Navarro:
This is Santiago de Cuba, where nothing should surprise you. The city alive at any hour of the day and night, where there is no winter and the summers are hot, like the warmth of its people; where each inhabitant knows how to uncork the bottle of happiness to toast friendship, that constant embrace of this hospitable city of Cuba.