Bacunayagua Bridge: One of the Seven Wonders of the Cuban Architecture

Bacunayagua Bridge: One of the Seven Wonders of the Cuban Architecture

Cuba is an island that has many places to explore during your holidays and thousands of marvels to see and to discover. One of this wonders is the Bacunayagua Bridge, built in the borders of Havana Province and Matanzas.

Matanzas had the opportunity to inaugurate in the first year of the Revolution the longest and highest bridge in Cuba until that moment. Its construction is historically a crisscross with the Via Blanca (the highway that connects Havana City and Varadero), begun by Carlos Prío Socarrás´ government, with the purpose of shortening the distance between Matanzas and Havana. A total of 41 columns sustains the bridge of Bacunayagua, those that were in its moment the most slender in the world made of concrete.

In 1957 the works of construction of the bridge began, classified during that time as a colossal work, not only for its extension but for the height on an immense cliff. Its columns possess a pile of 22.50 meters each one, with a width of a meter for 1.60 meters, and some reach the 42 meters high.

On its bolsters there are 6 beams that weigh each one 47 tons, and that they were fused in the same place the bridge was being built. In total the bridge has a height 103 meters, with a longitude 314 meters and a width of 17. On September26, 1959, Fidel Castro Ruz and Celia Sanchez inspected the works, the crossing for the splendid bridge constituted the moment in that the road was inaugurated; although it did not go up to October of that year, when the opening of the paths for the communication between Havana and Matanzas was officially settled.

This impressive step that is 18 kilometers away to the west of the city of Matanzas and it establishes the territorial limit with the county of Havana. To the north of the bridge, the immense sea is sighted; the channel and the outlet of what should be the bed of a mighty river in a remote time, and to the south, the extensive and exuberant Valley of Yumurí.

The importance of that crossing for the Via Blanca resides in that is the nearest and direct connection, for the beautiful landscape of the Cuban north coast, between the Tunnel of the capital of the country and the City Spa of Varadero.

The beauty of the environment of Bacunayagua, favored by the execution of that advanced project, alternates with multitude of headlands, hillsides and mangroves, natural refuge of great ornithological importance where 74 species of birds cohabit with 16 of reptiles and eight of amphibians. In the ecosystem of swamp of this area vegetable formations appear as the heath coastal xeroformo and the forest semideciduo, besides a rich and varied fauna with high percent of endemism.

The magnitude and splendid image of the place can be appreciated perfectly from the Mirador, located in an elevation to the end west of the wonderful work. This is a unique invitation you must take during your holidays in the island.