In March-April this year (2015), spent 30 days solo driving around western and central Cuba. It was brilliant, not least due to lovely Cuban people.
These notes originate as a response to a specific query about birding in Cuba. I'll attempt to make them more coherent and expand them when I have more time, or in response to specific queries.
My trip was arranged through Andy Mitchell, an very experienced Cuba-hand and tour guide. He makes all arrangements through his a business relationship with HavanaTour, who's Emma Russell was also very helpful.
He's a really great bloke, providing me with loads of information including driving notes, Google Earth site co-ordinates, bird lists and lots of advice. None of Andy's specific guidance is included in these notes.
Contact Andy:
http://www.cubabirdingtours.com/index.asp
email: [email protected]
My itinerary included:
Vinales, Guanahacabibes (Cabo San Antonio), La Güira National Park Park (San Diego de los Baños), Zapata (Playa Larga), Cayo Coco, La Belen, Topes de Collantes, back to Zapata (Playa Larga) and finishing of with 2 nights in Havana.
1. To give you some idea of where if went and what I saw, you can have a look at my Cuban images in my Flickr Photo stream, all of them are geotagged: https://www.flickr.com/photos/hoppy1951/ I’ve still got some tidy ones left to process.
2. As I'm a wildlife generalist, rather than an avid birder, I really enjoy taking my time and finding my own stuff. I only used local guides when I visited major Biosphere Reserves in Cuba e.g. Zapata, Guanahacabibes and La Belen, as the can only be visited with a National Park guide. So to visit Las Salinas and other sites for Zapata Wren and Zapata Sparrow, you’ll need a local guide. Much of Cienaga de Zapata is inaccessible for tourists.
I used Angel Martinez. He charges about 30CUC (£20) for a morning, 45CUC (£30) for a full day. He and Andy Mitchell were the guys who 'rediscovered' the legendary Zapata Rail. He's a thoroughly great guy, with a great sense of humour and a taste for Polo's.
Although I saw some flamingos, various heron etc., Las Salinas was rather disappointing due to lack of water in early April. Angel told me that this had been a problem for some time. Cayo Coco was much better for waders and other waterbirds e.g. flamingos.
Hotel Playa Larga – lovely staff, variable, but tidy food, good a/c rooms, problems with water supply, so don’t expect a power shower! Good wildlife in and around the grounds e.g. large Cuban Parrot preroost.
3. Watch out if you get the new reprint of Birds of Cuba. Take some sticky tape (hard to find in Cuba), as pages started to fall out after the first few days! I found the ‘Bird Songs of Cuba’ very useful.
4. Beware of the Red/Black Land Crabs, especially between Playa Larga and Playa Giron! I had a rear tyre sidewall blowout one morning, with the tyre ruined. Rex Car Hire may be expensive, but they delivered and fitted a brand new complete wheel within 3 hours. My Renault Fluence Expression was excellent to drive. (http://www.rex.cu/client/cars/index.php?car_id=82)
5. Navigation – use SatNav.
Smartphone GPS works in Cuba, usually locking on to at least 15 satellites. Returned (April 2015) from a 30 day trip driving solo around western and central Cuba. Used the brilliant free android satnav app OSMAnd+, together with the downloaded OpenStreet map of Cuba, on android phone to navigate over 2,200km, both in car, walking around the countryside and the streets of Havana. Prepare the map by locating and saving all planned destinations and points of interest, adding more during the trip. The app gives both visual and verbal directions, warnings, including lane changes, one-way streets, speed limits and cameras. Take a dashboard clip and in-car charger.
If you use this app, I can send you my OSMAnd+ preferences file that includes gps locations of the birding sites I visited. Or you could plot them on your own SatNav.
Watch out if using Google Earth co-ordinates, as these are very different to GPS planar map co-ordinates.
Maps online, including the Cuban Road Atlas here: http://www.cubamappa.com/en/
6. Driving tips: http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Travel-g147270-c215969/Cuba:Caribbean:Driving.In.Cuba.html (5. above is part of my contribution)
I only got stopped by the traffic police once. It was just a routine document check carried out by 3 of the most beautiful, friendly, smiling young traffic policewomen that I've ever seen.
Watch out for railway crossings!
7. If you have room, do pick up hitch-hikers. As I was travelling alone, I tended to just pick up women and families. In my experience, Cuban people are generally very friendly and delightful company. As anywhere, it would be a wise precaution to make sure that any loose items are secured in the boot. I am fortunate to be very well travelled and I regard Cuba as one of the safest countries I have ever visited. While there may be some petty pilfering and scamming, there is virtually no violent crime outside Havana.
8. Buy 5 litre water bottles at petrol stations. You can also fuel up on Havana Club rum at about £3.60 a litre bottle, plus a bottle of Cuban cola.
9. Mobile phones are very common in Cuba, but my Orange phone, only picked up local provider CubaCell in central Cuba (Havana, Playa Larga, Cayo Coco, La Belen, Trinidad).
10. My Spanish is rather limited, but now much improved by mutual language lessons when driving across Cuba. I downloaded 'Dominican' Spanish (nearest to Cuban) onto my Android phone, so that I could use Google Translate offline. It was really useful in voice-recognition mode (English-Spanish only), but it did sometimes result some hilarious mistranslations. Fortunately there is a delay between the text translation and the vocal one, saving me from some trouble with a waitress, when it translated "I think you are very bossy" into something very rude!
Hope this helps! I’m very happy to attempt to answer any questions you may have.
Allan Hopkins
These notes originate as a response to a specific query about birding in Cuba. I'll attempt to make them more coherent and expand them when I have more time, or in response to specific queries.
My trip was arranged through Andy Mitchell, an very experienced Cuba-hand and tour guide. He makes all arrangements through his a business relationship with HavanaTour, who's Emma Russell was also very helpful.
He's a really great bloke, providing me with loads of information including driving notes, Google Earth site co-ordinates, bird lists and lots of advice. None of Andy's specific guidance is included in these notes.
Contact Andy:
http://www.cubabirdingtours.com/index.asp
email: [email protected]
My itinerary included:
Vinales, Guanahacabibes (Cabo San Antonio), La Güira National Park Park (San Diego de los Baños), Zapata (Playa Larga), Cayo Coco, La Belen, Topes de Collantes, back to Zapata (Playa Larga) and finishing of with 2 nights in Havana.
1. To give you some idea of where if went and what I saw, you can have a look at my Cuban images in my Flickr Photo stream, all of them are geotagged: https://www.flickr.com/photos/hoppy1951/ I’ve still got some tidy ones left to process.
2. As I'm a wildlife generalist, rather than an avid birder, I really enjoy taking my time and finding my own stuff. I only used local guides when I visited major Biosphere Reserves in Cuba e.g. Zapata, Guanahacabibes and La Belen, as the can only be visited with a National Park guide. So to visit Las Salinas and other sites for Zapata Wren and Zapata Sparrow, you’ll need a local guide. Much of Cienaga de Zapata is inaccessible for tourists.
I used Angel Martinez. He charges about 30CUC (£20) for a morning, 45CUC (£30) for a full day. He and Andy Mitchell were the guys who 'rediscovered' the legendary Zapata Rail. He's a thoroughly great guy, with a great sense of humour and a taste for Polo's.
Although I saw some flamingos, various heron etc., Las Salinas was rather disappointing due to lack of water in early April. Angel told me that this had been a problem for some time. Cayo Coco was much better for waders and other waterbirds e.g. flamingos.
Hotel Playa Larga – lovely staff, variable, but tidy food, good a/c rooms, problems with water supply, so don’t expect a power shower! Good wildlife in and around the grounds e.g. large Cuban Parrot preroost.
3. Watch out if you get the new reprint of Birds of Cuba. Take some sticky tape (hard to find in Cuba), as pages started to fall out after the first few days! I found the ‘Bird Songs of Cuba’ very useful.
4. Beware of the Red/Black Land Crabs, especially between Playa Larga and Playa Giron! I had a rear tyre sidewall blowout one morning, with the tyre ruined. Rex Car Hire may be expensive, but they delivered and fitted a brand new complete wheel within 3 hours. My Renault Fluence Expression was excellent to drive. (http://www.rex.cu/client/cars/index.php?car_id=82)
5. Navigation – use SatNav.
Smartphone GPS works in Cuba, usually locking on to at least 15 satellites. Returned (April 2015) from a 30 day trip driving solo around western and central Cuba. Used the brilliant free android satnav app OSMAnd+, together with the downloaded OpenStreet map of Cuba, on android phone to navigate over 2,200km, both in car, walking around the countryside and the streets of Havana. Prepare the map by locating and saving all planned destinations and points of interest, adding more during the trip. The app gives both visual and verbal directions, warnings, including lane changes, one-way streets, speed limits and cameras. Take a dashboard clip and in-car charger.
If you use this app, I can send you my OSMAnd+ preferences file that includes gps locations of the birding sites I visited. Or you could plot them on your own SatNav.
Watch out if using Google Earth co-ordinates, as these are very different to GPS planar map co-ordinates.
Maps online, including the Cuban Road Atlas here: http://www.cubamappa.com/en/
6. Driving tips: http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Travel-g147270-c215969/Cuba:Caribbean:Driving.In.Cuba.html (5. above is part of my contribution)
I only got stopped by the traffic police once. It was just a routine document check carried out by 3 of the most beautiful, friendly, smiling young traffic policewomen that I've ever seen.
Watch out for railway crossings!
7. If you have room, do pick up hitch-hikers. As I was travelling alone, I tended to just pick up women and families. In my experience, Cuban people are generally very friendly and delightful company. As anywhere, it would be a wise precaution to make sure that any loose items are secured in the boot. I am fortunate to be very well travelled and I regard Cuba as one of the safest countries I have ever visited. While there may be some petty pilfering and scamming, there is virtually no violent crime outside Havana.
8. Buy 5 litre water bottles at petrol stations. You can also fuel up on Havana Club rum at about £3.60 a litre bottle, plus a bottle of Cuban cola.
9. Mobile phones are very common in Cuba, but my Orange phone, only picked up local provider CubaCell in central Cuba (Havana, Playa Larga, Cayo Coco, La Belen, Trinidad).
10. My Spanish is rather limited, but now much improved by mutual language lessons when driving across Cuba. I downloaded 'Dominican' Spanish (nearest to Cuban) onto my Android phone, so that I could use Google Translate offline. It was really useful in voice-recognition mode (English-Spanish only), but it did sometimes result some hilarious mistranslations. Fortunately there is a delay between the text translation and the vocal one, saving me from some trouble with a waitress, when it translated "I think you are very bossy" into something very rude!
Hope this helps! I’m very happy to attempt to answer any questions you may have.
Allan Hopkins
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