It is located in the southeast part of the island, in the Sierra Maestra mountain range in the municipality of Guamá, Santiago de Cuba Province.

[2] The name is believed to be a corruption of the phrase for "turquoise peak" (Spanish: turquesa), so-named for its apparent blue hues seen by the heights in certain views.

The first documented ascent of the peak was in 1860 by Fred W. Ramsden, a twenty-year-old Englishman then living in Santiago de Cuba.

The following year, in response, Ramsden's son published a letter his father had written to his own mother describing the original ascent.

According to Che Guevara, Castro's second-in-command, the mountain had an "almost mystical significance" to the revolutionaries, chiefly due to it being the highest point in Cuba.