Tue, March 20 - Exploring the west side of the Bay of Pigs

We got up at 5 AM, got ourselves organized, and joined our four other house mates for a delicious breakfast of fruits, cheeses, bread pudding and eggs.  At 6:40 Arturo arrived with the bus and we joined the others for a ride in the dark.  Eventually we could see bits of ocean through the shrubs as daylight appeared.  We drove down the east side of the narrow Bay of Pigs.  We turned inland to the community of Bermejas where we parked at the side of the road next to an unmarked path.  We walked a short ways to a crude fence-like bird hide and immediately began seeing the beautiful Blue-headed Quail Doves, along with Grey-headed Quail Doves feeding on the ground.  The light was still pretty dim so photography was difficult, but the doves were very cooperative and even scurried around the blind and joined us!

Blue-headed Quail-
dove

We continued on to La Cuchilla, a lovely marshy area and saw quite a few rare Red-shouldered Blackbirds - similar to our Red-wing Blackbirds in appearance and song, but duller. 

We then saw a very cute, tiny Bare-legged Owl glaring at us from its nesting hole.

Bare-legged Owl

Cuban Pygmy Owl

We turned around and stopped at a little snack shop where Bob and I bought a half liter of chocolate/vanilla ice cream as it was the smallest size.  There was a large monument to the Cubans who died fighting off the CIA-sponsored Cuban exiles.  We walked along the roadside looking for birds and Bob called to me; I turned and managed to trip over a chunk of limestone and fell in a turning roll, hitting my right elbow and wrist and leg in front of everyone!   Several people dashed over and picked me up and I hobbled off.

Cuban Parakeet

The bus took us back to the coast where the water was amazingly turquoise and beautiful!  There were a few souvenir and dive shacks.

  We walked over to a cenote, Cuevas de Los Peces (cave of the fishes) a limestone sinkhole, that was filled with saltwater.  Busloads of French and other tourists were descending on the area and jumping into the water.   We had a good lunch of crocodile and fish which I had difficulty eating as my arm was so stiff by that time. Then we had a little time to go swimming in the ocean if we wanted to. 

The changing room turned out to be a tiny toilet cubical and I figured I should take it easy anyway, so Bob and I walked over to the shore.  There was no beach just undercut sharp limestone descending into the water so I’m glad I passed on that opportunity.

It was in the 90s and the birding was quite quiet, but we took an hour and a half stroll through some woods and didn't see much.   At 4 PM we returned to Casa Kirenia where I got a bag of ice and iced my wrist and elbow and napped a bit.  At 6:15 we walked to the Hostal Enrique and joined the others on their rooftop terrace for the list, fortified with delicious mojitos.

We enjoyed a dinner of roast pork back at our hostal; everyone except me went out on a night drive to look for nightjars .  My arm was getting better, so I decided to rest.

Red-headed Brown Anole Lizard

Mon, March 19 - Driving to Playa Larga

As the plan was to bird around the Moka Hotel in the morning, and  it doesn’t get light until 7:30, we were allowed to sleep in and meet for breakfast at that time.  The hotel provided an elaborate buffet of fruits, cheeses, breads and made-to-order omelets.

Moka Grounds

  We were joined by Oscar, a local guide, and walked around the hotel grounds.  This area, in the earlier half of the 20th century, had been cleared for pasture.  When it was decided to establish an ecologically- minded community, the hillsides were terraced, thus the name, Las Terrazas.   The levels were planted with native and imported species of trees that would be useful in woodworking, furniture, etc., thus teak, hibiscus and other trees were planted and now have created a lovely forest in the area. 

Cuban Emerald Hummingbird

We got great views of the Cuban Emerald hummingbird that my father had identified back in 1954 on a beach at So Dartmouth, MA after Hurricane Carol had blown it all the way up the eastern seaboard!

About 9:30 we had to leave and loaded on the bus for a short ride across the village lake to a steep hill planted in pines.  We climbed to the top the slope and there at the tip of a pine were two Stygian Owls, large owls with a distinctive face patterns who obligingly sat and preened for time while zip liner tourists cruised by.  

Stygian Owl

The bus took us a short ways to a farm, Santa Rosalia,  where the owners put out seed for the.common Yellow-faced Grassquit and the rarer Cuban Grassquit which allowed us to  observe them together.  We also got a chance to wander around the farm and see the chickens, turkeys, goats, and many pigs wandering around their pens.  A pair of oxen with a wooden yoke trod up with a load of manure on a sledge.  It is amazing to see the mix of old and new in Cuba.

Cuban Grassquit (L) and Yellow-faced Grassquit (R)

Sweet curious piglets

We continued on to an old French coffee plantation, Cafetal Buena Vista, that used several hundred slaves in the early 1800s to process coffee beans.  Many French growers moved over to Cuba after the slave rebellion in Haiti and set up shop on this island.  The coffee plantation has been fixed up as a park and restaurant.   We settled into a long table on a leafy terrace and had a pleasant lunch while being serenaded by a local band.

Cafetal Buena Vista

I was hoping to hatch a glimpse of Havana, but we managed to skirt around it and headed south through long expanses of scrubby countryside, neither farmland nor grazing land, but seemingly unoccupied.   At 5 PM we arrived at Playa Larga at the head of the Bay of Pigs, or Bahía de Cochinos .  The 1961 CIA-led invasion here is known as Playa Girón in Cuba.

We were told by Jon that we had to split up into two hotels.  Bob and I, Sarah & Erin, two women from the Wings office in Tucson who were able to come on the trip at the last minute due to a medical cancellation, and Bob & Laura were dropped off at the new and pretty 3-room Casa Kirenia.  Our proud host greeted us and showed us our brightly-painted, sparkling-clean rooms.  Ours is bright pink with a pink-tiled bathroom.  I quickly showered and got two colas which I mixed with the rum-filled "fruit juice" boxes I had found in our mini bar this morning and packed away!  The others walked to the beach while we relaxed before walking the short ways to the Hostal Enrique where the rest of our group is staying.  We joined them on the roof-top ocean-view terrace for the List.  

Cuban transportation

We got back to our Casa at 8 and had a good supper of fish soup and chicken or shrimp.  No wifi, so the blog will have to waitt

Sun, March 18 - Exploring the Province of Artemisa

(We finally have wifi after several days at our B&B...although now I am in the huge lobby/swimming pool/continuous music playing area of our resort on Playa Coco!!)

The alarm went off at five and we had our bags out at six and we piled onto the bus.  Our schedule is a little mixed up as the hotel we were to stay at last night, La Moka , overbooked and couldn’t accommodate us at the last minute so we spent last night  in Soroa.  They were not prepared to serve breakfast at 6 AM, since they are not used to birders and their crazy hours.   So we drove off for an hour into the dense fog of early morning, arriving at the Hotel Mirador in San Diego de Los Banos where we were to have stayed night 2.  

Cuban Pygmy Owl

Tawny-shouldered Blackbird

We had a makeshift breakfast there of ham and cheese sandwiches, hard-boiled eggs and yogurt, and then drove towards the coast.  The fog was very dense and we couldn’t tell what kind of environment we were traveling though until we drove into a campground of colorful concrete cabins where we parked. 

Bromeliad & Kapok-covered Magote

The mist cleared as we walked a short ways and found ourselves surrounded by large, steep magotes, impressive limestone monoliths, that were covered with bromeliads and kapok trees. The area was full of very colorful birds, Green-backed Woodpecker, the trogon again, Smooth-billed Anis and many more.

We followed a stream that flowed under a natural bridge and walked along paths and climbed up stone steps that led us into Che Guevara’s hideout during the Cuban Missile Crisis!!   His actual bed and table where he played chess were sitting there.  There was no trash or graffiti anywhere, just a beautiful and interesting national monument.

Che's hideout

We spend several hours there, finally leaving about 1 PM and drove out the now-sunny valley of small farms between the high limestone hills.  We returned to the Hotel Mirador where the large swimming pool was filling up with ninos and riotous music was playing.  We went to an outdoor pavilion where were served a lunch of shrimp with rice and plantains.

Entrance to cave area

After lunch we drove a short distance to the fabulous pleasure estate of José Cortina, built in the 20s & 30s and a perfect example of why Castro succeeded.  It is now a public park and pleasant place to walk around and bird.

Entry to Jose Cortina's estate

At four we boarded the bus but turned west on the A-4 freeway, drove a short ways, made a u- turn across the center median (!) and stopped at a fish farm to pick up quite a few birds, but most of them familiar shore species.   It was getting late and I was hoping we wouldn’t get to our hotel too late, as it’s supposed to be the nicest one of the trip and only a one-night stay!   

We finally pulled into the community of Las Terrazas at 6:00.  The town was built as an idyllic eco-village in 1968.  It is very self-sufficient with its own hospital, school, and farming industry.  Everyone lives in similar apartment buildings surrounded by beautiful gardens, arts center and workshops.  It is now a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, and I was hoping to see a bit of it.  

Hotel Moka

We had 45 minutes to move into our nice rooms at the Moka Hotel with spacious balconies overlooking the town.  We had been told that the minibar was included in the room price so we grabbed a couple of Bucanero beers and settled on our porch chairs.  I had purchased wifi cards from the front desk and attempted to send out the first blog post.  Needless to say, we didn’t have time for showers before joining the group for the List and then hoping on the bus for the short ride into town for dinner.  

 We stopped at a lovely little restaurant, El Romero, which is one of the few vegetarian places to eat in Cuba.  We were served a delicious set menu of salads, beet soup and platters of various wrap, veggie sushi, and other things.  Very good and quite elegant.

Back to our hotel for the night.

Fri, Sat, March 16-17 - To Florida and Cuba

The alarm went off at 2 AM and we staggered about and got out the door by 2:49.  It was a great hour to drive to LAX.   We made it to Budget, returned our car, got to Terminal 5, checked in, and went through Security in just over 2 hours!  We had a while to wait for our flight to take off and dozed, drank coffee, and read the LA Times.  Finally at 7:30 we boarded our jetBlue Airbus and settled into our Mint (First/Business) seats.  Any other airline would have charged the earth for the amazingly comfortable seats we got, but jetBlue, my new favorite airline, was very reasonable.  By booking early Bob got us two pods that took up the entire width of the plane.  We could lie down flat with puffy pillows and comforters while drinking mimosas and nibbling pain au chocolat!  We hated to leave when we finally set down in Ft. Lauderdale!!

We joined a crowd of tourists who are spending the night in town before sailing on various cruises, and waited with them for an hour before our Best Western jitney finally arrived to take us to our modest hotel.

We walked into the shopping center next door in the lovely, warm evening air and found 

Slackers Bar & Grill, Ft Lauderdale’s shine to the Green Bay Packers!  Our friends, the Joneses would feel right at home!  With TVs at every table and all over the walls , we were surrounded by March Madness.  Great homemade potato chips and enormous good sandwiches!

Saturday, March 17 - Arriving in Cuba

We slept in until seven this morning.  I snagged some decaf from the Hotel breakfast bar and we finished off the half turkey/tomato/avocado sandwich I had brought back from Slackers last night.  We took the 9 AM jitney back to the Ft. Lauderdale airport and were let off at the jetBlue Cuba desk.  There we eventually met all the members of our group, plus Jon Dunn our leader. We paid the $50 visa fee plus $25 for each suitcase and then Jon led us to Zona Fresca, a cute little restaurant that makes delicious food! 

Bob and I had beers and really good pork/marinated onion/black bean/rice burritos.  We boarded our jet - Bob and I each having a window seat so we wouldn’t fight over looking at the views over the Florida keys.  I sat next to a very nice lady from Palm Beach who was going home to Cuba to visit family for the first time in 12 years.  Her young son was thrilled to be taking his first flight!

We landed at 3:30, went through immigration and customs with no problem, and. met our Cuban guide, Luis, and Arturo, our bus driver, and headed west in a brand new bus.  I was hoping that we would have to drive through a bit of Havana, but somehow we totally avoided any city and drove through small farms and ranch land on a wide highway.  We did pass a lot of great old American 50s and 60s cars, all in beautiful shape and of great colors - unlike the amazingly drab cars nowadays in the US!!

White-crowned Pidgeon

After about 75 minutes we pulled off the highway towards our hotel in Soroa.  We took a short walk past a bar/picnic area the was doing good business on a Saturday afternoon.  We began logging in birds at a great rate including the fabulous Cuban Trogon, one of the birds I most wanted to see!  Unlike most Trogons it wasn’t secretive, but sat out on a limb so we could admire it!  A really lovely bird! 

Cuban Trogon

We saw many more, which we’ll see more of later...I was beginning to fade and fortunately we walked about an hour more and reached our hotel at last!  It looked pretty full with weekend holidayers .  A huge pool full of ninos and people sitting around drinking - looked very inviting!  We, however, had 45 minutes to organize our gear and appear for dinner as it was seven already.  Bob and I got Cuba Libres and dug into the extensive buffet of salads, soups, a chef grilling chicken, etc. with ice cream and pastries for dessert!

A lively trio was playing Cuban favorites, so we had to meet afterwards in the hotel lobby for the “List” where Jon reads off all the birds seen in the day and we mark them down on our lists.  Then we were invited to take a “short” evening walk to look for owls and a large rodent that lives around here.   Amazingly I wasn’t the only one exhausted and almost everyone staggered back to their rooms to rest...as we’re to have our bags outside our rooms by 6 AM!

¡¡ Vamos a Cuba !!

We're off to Cuba tonight, flying to Ft. Lauderdale (at the height of the Spring Break festivities!).  We join our group of 10 other birders for a Wings Tour of Cuba led by Job Dunn.  Our  JetBlue plane lands in Havana, but that's all we'll see of the city as we immediately leave, heading west into the countryside to see some new birds.   We then go to the Bay of Pigs, head up to the north coast, and finish the trip in the city of Camagüey, from where we fly back to Florida.
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