Cuba: La Isabelica Historic Plantation
This is a UNESCO World Heritage site. La Isabelica is a historic coffee plantation that was founded in the 19th century and played a significant role in the region’s coffee production during that time. Today, it is a museum, offering a glimpse into Cuba’s colonial-era coffee industry. The owner and founder was of French origin, Victor Constantin Couzo, who escaped a revolution in the neighboring Haiti, coming to eastern Cuba and starting a coffee industry. He married one of his slaves. Slave labor was used extensively on the plantation. The sprawling plantation includes old mansion house, other buildings, coffee drying platforms, donkey-pulled mills and presses, slave housing, and much more. The place is very atmospheric and impressive and you almost feel like you have traveled back in time when here.
