Cuba - Playa Larga - Part 1

Practicalities

Despite the significance the Lonely Planet placed on the Zapata region, it was a shame not to see a more detailed map of the local villages in the guidebook. I've tried to point out a few bits of info which I hope would be useful to others. Sorry about the quality of the maps - I can only do screenshots on my phone at the moment.

1. Viazul / Guamá tour bus stop
2. Casa Nina - 0145-45987479
3. Zapata permit office (get there way before 8.30)
4. Breakfast - egg muffin and 1L of soy yogurt for 5 pesos
5. Cadeca (money exchange)
6. Drinks kiosk with ice cream vendor next door
7. Fresh home made yogurt stall and pizza stall
8. Restaurants
9. Octopus diving centre

Etecsa - right next to the communications tower. You can't miss it. Only 1 PC, no WiFi

The story

My original plan of going straight from Havana to Playa Larga went out of the window when I found out at the Havana Viazul bus station that the only bus had already left at 7am when I turned up at 8.30, so I had to backtrack slightly having gone to Cienfuegos first. The bus was from Cienfuegos was destined for Varadero and took about 2.5 hours. I couldn't reserve and the bus was full so it was either stand or wait another day. It was now or never.

Playa Larga is a small village conveniently situated between Cuba's largest national park / swamp - Ciénaga de la Zapata - and a number of scuba diving / snorkelling sites in the Bay of Pigs (there is more history to see 35km further south in Playa Girón but I didn't think a room of glorified artefacts was worth the trek).

I spent the first afternoon riding a rented bike into the swamps (Las Salinas) with a Swiss couple and their Taiwanese travel buddy after meeting them at the village drinks kiosk. The path along Las Salinas was long and straight. The ride seemed never ending and it was a constant dilemma between avoiding the intense heat of the sun or the intense  aggravation of the mosquitoes. Luckily they don't have malaria or dengue fever here (so the guide claimed anyway).

We saw local crabs (they were very hard to spot), termite mounds (some were massive - the size of my day rucksack), and pink flamingos (supposedly the highlight). Sadly there were only about 30 flamingos that we saw - not quite the 10,000 according to the Lonely Planet. I wouldn't even call it a flock. Maybe "a few stray ones" is more fitting. As for other smaller birds, either my eyesight was too bad to spot them, or I was too preoccupied with not being bitten by the relentless insects that I missed everything in my path - or both.

(To insert photo of flamingos when downloaded from big camera)

We didn't make it to the end of the long path before we decided it was going to take a while to ride back and it would get dark. We did manage to get back just as the sun was setting. We stopped off at the other guys' casa first where I also returned the rented bike - the guy was even so kind as to offer me a ride in his rickshaw back to my casa, all as part of the $5 he made from my 3.5 hours of bike rental. It was the worst rickshaw ride in my whole life (the walk back wouldn't have been much better). It wasn't his driving; I was bitten no fewer than 40 times all over the uncovered parts of my body in the space of 20 minutes. This included my little toe (had I known I was going to ride for 33km and get bitten so much I wouldn't have worn shorts and flip flops), face and lower lip. Despite the bites, my spirits were high and I was pleased with meeting people I could spend more than 2 minutes with and actually call friends. 

The advantage of staying in a village pretty much in the middle of nowhere (no internet aside) was that stars were actually visible, despite a little light pollution from the street lights. After debating whether to go out to take some night shots on that night or the following night I decided it was another now or never (which indeed turned out to be the case as there was a thunderstorm on the second night).

TBC...