Locale: Located in Matanzas Province, the Zapata Swamp, the largest wetland in Cuba, is also the largest in the Caribbean, and the best preserved to date in the Antilles.

Ernest Hemingway lived at the property known as Finca Vigía from mid 1939 to 1960, renting it at first, and then buying it in December 1940 after he married his third wife, the journalist Martha Gellhorn.  Hemingway paid $12,500 for the property, using the royalties from his novel For Whom the Bell Tolls.  At the Finca, Hemingway also wrote The Old Man and the Sea (which seems to be required reading for many an American high school student).  After Hemingway’s death by suicide in 1961, the Cuban government took over the property and maintains it as a museum.

Weather:  80s.  Sunny.

Itinerary: West to Santo Tomás, birding at La Turba in Ciénaga de Zapata, back to Playa Larga, north to Australia, west on Carretera Central to La Habana, south to Soroa in Pinar del Rio Province

Overnight: Villa Soroa

Excursions: Early departure at 5:20, picnic breakfast on bus, birding at Santo Tomás with boat excursion to blind, late lunch at paladar Il Divino, visit Hemingway’s home at Finca Vigía, buffet dinner at hotel

Habitats: Tropical dry forest.  Marsh.  Some farmland.  Botanical garden.

Bird Species (partial listing, by family): Turkey Vulture (Cathartes aura), Cuban Peewee (Contopus caribaeus), Thick-Billed Vireo (Vireo crassirostris), Zapata Wren (Ferminia cerverai), Northern Mockingbird (Mimus polyglottos), Common Yellowthroat (Geothlypis trichas), Northern Parula (Setophaga americana)

Guides and Driver: Angel, David, Liu, Esdrey and Carlos

Observations: On our way to Havana, we were stopped for a short while by a road accident: a truck had spilled construction rocks all over the road.

We like our hotel (once we got used to the idea that there’s no water between 10 pm and 6 am).  The cabanas are kind of funky looking — in fact, I don’t even know that they are designed in any kind of architectural style:  maybe mid-century modern (“sleek angular features with a minimalist look and openness to nature”), though I don’t know about the A-frame construction and the stained glass in vibrating primary colors.  The pool is certainly lovely.

Marti and I watched a bit of the World Baseball Classic on TV; many countries send teams to the tournament, but I had not heard of it.

Reflections:  So far, none of us have gotten sick, and that’s probably because our guide has been very insistent about the precautions we should be taking.  Most important is the water: bottled water is provided at all times, and we are reminded to drink as much as we need to.  We are also reminded never to drink the water out of the tap, not to brush our teeth with it, and not to get it in our mouths.  Cuban water is not “dirty” of course; it simply contains a different set of microbes than we are used to, or at least this is my interpretation of this stricture about water.  The latest scientific consensus is that we all have collections of symbiotic, commensal, and pathogenic bacteria, along with fungi and viruses, living in our bodies.  And where does our microbiome come from?  Our environment.  It makes sense to me that we should be careful about introducing alien microbiota into our bodies.

Images:

We traveled by boat along this waterway, in search of en elusive Cuban endemic.

We’re waiting for the road to be cleared, after a rare road accident (no one was injured).

I have to include this photo of a classic American car!

The Cuban flag flies above a petrol station/rest stop.

We’re looking into one of the rooms at Hemingway’s home at Finca Vigía.

Hemingway’s home has been preserved as he left it; this is his typewriter.

Hemingway’s boat, the Pilar, has also been preserved at the museum.

Locale:  I’m sure that nearly all Americans have heard of the Bay of Pigs invasion, but most probably have only a hazy idea of what actually happened.  I was quite young when the event occurred and count myself among those who could not give you a coherent account of what happened during those early spring days in 1961.  On 17 April, the CIA-sponsored paramilitary group Brigade 2506 began its invasion of Cuba, with the intent to overthrow the Castro regime, at an isolated spot on the island’s southern shore known as the Bay of Pigs. Almost immediately, the invasion was a disaster for the exiles.  Within three days, the fighting was essentially over, with 114 of the invaders killed in action and over 1,100 taken prisoner.  Eventually, 1113 prisoners were exchanged for US$53 million in food and medicine.

Weather:  80s.  Sunny.

Itinerary: In and around Playa Girón and Zapata Swamp

Overnight: Hotel Playa Girón

Excursions: Early wake-up, picnic breakfast at hotel, birding at Bermejas with stops by the roadside and Moringa grove, visit to Museo Playa Girón, buffet lunch at hotel, visit to bird feeders in Palpite, birding in Soplillar, dinner at paladar Milly’s

Habitats: Marsh.  Open fields.  Farmland.  Flowering shrubs.  Seasonally-flooded savanna.

Bird Species (partial listing, by family): Gray-Fronted Quail Dove (Geotrygon caniceps), Blue-Headed Quail Dove (Starnoenas cyanocephala), Ruddy Quail Dove (Geotrygon montana), Great Lizard Cuckoo (Coccyzus merlini), Smooth-Billed Ani (Crotophaga ani), Greater Antillean Nightjar (Antrostomus cubanensis), Bee Hummingbird (Mellisuga helenae), Barn Owl (Tyto alba), Bare-Legged Owl (Margarobyas lawrencii), West Indian Woodpecker (Melanerpes superciliaris), Fernandina’s Flicker (Colaptes fernandinae), Cuban Parakeet (Psittacara euops), Loggerhead Kingbird (Tyrannus caudifasciatus), Tree Swallow (Tachycineta bicolor), Bank Swallow (Riparia riparia), Gray Catbird (Dumetella carolinensis), Ovenbird (Seiurus aurocapilla), Black-and-White Warbler (Mniotilta varia), Swainson’s Warbler (Limnothlypis swainsonii), American Redstart (Setophaga ruticilla), Black-throated Blue Warbler (Setophaga caerulescens), Yellow-Throated Warbler (Setophaga dominica), Red-Shouldered Blackbird (Agelaius assimilis), Cuban Oriole (Icterus melanopsis)

Other Species: Black racer snake (possibly Alsophis cantherigerus adspersus)

Guides and Driver: Angel, David, Liu, Orlando, Esdrey and Carlos

Observations: Marti and I went for a swim in the Bay of Pigs (in Spanish, Bahía de Cochinos), before lunch.  There is a section of the resort marked off for swimming, inside a breakwater.  Marti got sea urchin spines in her foot but was able to extricate them successfully.

Milly’s featured genuine Cuban music and I enjoyed listening to the group.

On the way home, the bus almost hit an owl; we got out and I was able to see a Barn Owl in my binoculars (our guide uses a powerful flashlight).

Reflections:  We saw a number of billboards in the area condemning Yankee imperialism and celebrating the Cuban victory at the Bay of Pigs; however, these were less numerous and more muted than I was led to believe from some of the reading I did before the trip.

Speaking of the Revolution:  I probably still don’t understand the currency issue, meaning, I’m not sure why there’s a need to have two systems.  But there it is: locals use the Cuban peso, and the rest of us use CUCs, or the Cuban Convertible Peso.  As I understand it, the discontinuation of the US dollar as a medium of exchange in 2004 was retaliation for continuing US sanctions.  Okay, I get that.  The system is no trouble for us, the tourists, as we simply exchange our dollars, at almost a 1:1 ratio, and spend CUCs (and in my opinion, the little trinkets that tourists like to buy are just not that expensive).  Changes may be in the works, though.  A few years ago, an article in the Economist explained:

The Cuban peso (CUP) and the Cuban convertible peso (CUC) are both legal tender on the island, though neither is exchangeable in foreign markets. The CUC is pegged to the dollar and worth 25 times as much as the CUP. But whereas most Cubans are paid in CUP, nearly all consumer goods are priced in CUC. The system, which highlights divisions between those with access to hard currency and those without, has proved unpopular. On October 22nd state media published an official announcement that it is finally going to be scrapped. Cuba’s Council of Ministers, it said, had approved a timetable for implementing “measures that will lead to monetary and exchange unification”.

Images:

The Blue-Headed Quail Dove is aptly named.

We did not see as many of these billboards condemning the US as I expected to.

We are at the entrance to the Museo Playa Girón.

Here’s one of the displays inside the museum that I photographed.

We watched a Cuban Oriole at a feeder.

Notice the water line on these palms in this seasonally-flooded savanna.

Cows in Cuba don’t appear to be fenced in; we saw them everywhere.