In Cuba the term Oriente, which just means ‘east’ in Spanish, has long been applied to the easternmost part of the island, roughly a quarter of the country's total area. It is not uncommon for one of the four main compass points to be turned into a regional designation, usually with a very particular set of resonances: in the USA, the west; in Italy, the south; in England, the north. Although the resonances of these norths and souths and easts and wests are obviously very specific to the countries concerned, Cuba's Oriente shares some characteristics with Italy's south or England's north: an under-developed economy, a mountainous terrain, distant from centres of power, a history of social and political unrest. For all these reasons its population has often been looked down upon by Cuba's various elites. At the same time, however, the region has exercised a magnetic pull on the imaginations of those elsewhere in the country and outside the country.