As today is a driving day, we were allowed to sleep in and have breakfast at 7 AM, much to the relief of our cook, I’m sure! We are staying in a casa particular, a privately-owned small B&B run by the family who lives there. This is a fairly new development in Cuba as all hotels are owned by the government. We had our usual lavish breakfast spread of fruit, crepes (with sprinkles!) jam, cake, & eggs, before saying goodbye to our gracious hosts and joining the others on the bus.
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| Cuban Street Scene |
We drove north back to the Autopista Nacional, the highway that runs east-west through much of the country, and continued our way east. We stopped at a small cafe for coffee and pastries and then drove on another hour until we stopped for lunch near Santa Clara at a large open-air restaurant that had a buffet set up, so we weren’t presented with huge platters of food! I just had some black beans & rice and yuca with a beer.
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| Lunch! |
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| Band-headed Anole, A. lucius |
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| Cuban Green Anole, A. porratus |
We walked down to a nearby stream and saw two lovely anoli lizards, and then got back onto the highway. The traffic on all the roads on which we have traveled has been rather light. Not that many people own cars and gasoline is $5 a gallon. Many of the old restored American cars have newer, more efficient engines installed and a lot of loving care is put into maintaining them. Along all the major roads is a dirt track for the horse-drawn carts used for hauling wood or hay, or used as taxis for transporting people. It is very charming for us first-worlders to be able to frequently hear the the clopping of hooves on the pavement!
We turned north once again and headed for the other coast of Cuba where the horrendous Hurricane Irma hit last fall. We passed through a forest of blow-over trees and then crossed over a long causeway about 30 KM long reaching Cayo Coco, Cuba’s fourth largest island. The island plus the others in this chain were uninhabited until 1992 when the government established a single hotel and then a continuous stream of more. Cubans aren’t allowed to stay here, just to come for work - it is just set up for tourists. At five we arrived at our hotel, Hotel Sol Cayo Coco, a large noisy beach-oriented all-inclusive resort. We received blue wrist bands, which allow us to eat and drink as much as we want!
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| Hotel Sol Cayo Coco |
Before the hurricane we could have easily seen our target birds, but now who knows? Everything looks in good repair, but most of the trees are without many leaves and many birds have been driven away.
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| Hotel Beach |
We took a quick bird walk and then returned to the hotel for The List and a crowded noisy buffet of an amazing variety of foods. The staff are very well trained and friendly and cooked us pizzas to order, or cracked crab, roast beef, etc.. with an ice cream sundae bar for dessert!
I tried the wifi...but had problems - I’ll try again tomorrow.
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