mountain lake – Travels in Cuba

Ernesto and the big snake

The first time he took us to Lake Hanabanilla, our taxi driver Ernesto negotiated us a great deal with a motorboat driver ($25 for the day) and we started off on the two-hour ride to the waterfall at the other end of the lake. After we’d explored the waterfalls and were on our way back down the lake, our boatman steered close to the limestone cliffs on the far side. Then, he cut the motor, stood up, and seemed to be searching the narrow, sun-baked ledges.

Boat trip on Hanabanilla — Cuban friends Ernesto, Julian and the boatman on Lake Hanabanilla

Finally, after a bit more ledge study, he said something about a “maja de Santa Maria”. At those words, Ernesto became electrified and started fumbling in his backpack. With an old camcorder in his stubby fingers, he stumbled up onto the prow of the motorboat, which was still bobbing around in its own wake.

While Ernesto was balancing on the prow, trying to video something, I asked my friend Julian what a “maja de Santa Maria” was. I couldn’t see anything. “A snake – a really big snake” was his answer. It turned out to be a Cuban boa (see note below).

Then I saw it. The snake was at least 6 – if not 8 – feet long. It had been lying, looped over itself, on a ledge a little above our heads, but with all the commotion of the motor and human voices, it had started to slowly unwind itself and slither along the ledge. Continue reading Ernesto and the big snake

The Cuban national bird and how to find it

Cuba is home to many exotic-looking birds, so it’s not really surprising that the Cuban national bird is colourful. It’s called the tocororo (to co RO ro).

The tocororo’s plumage may be exotic, but the bird can be found in forests all over Cuba. I came upon my first tocororo in a dry jungle in the Escambray mountains, near Topes de Collantes. Ernesto, our taxi driver, guide and friend, had taken us there for a refreshing walk before swooping down to sub-tropical Trinidad on the Caribbean coast.

You hear a tocororo before you see one; its call is a low, bubbling warble. Ernesto knew right away and stopped me in my tracks, whispering “Tocororo!” He then silently led me to within ten feet of the bird, which was sitting on a branch over the path. Fumbling with my daypack in excitement, I somehow whipped out my camera and took as many between-leaf shots as I could before the bird flew away. One of them is posted above. As you can see, tocororos are dark blue, white and cherry-red, with navy and white polka-dot wings and a very attractive forked tail. What you can’t see is that they also have an iridescent blue-green back.

For a better idea of the back, check out this much more professional photo.

Hanabanilla: Lake trip with lunch

I knew that Cuba has masses of coastline, but I hadn’t heard anything about its lakes, of which there are a surprising number. My next excursion with taxi driver Ernesto took us to Lake Hanabanilla (pronounced Ha na bah nee ya), a long, winding artificial lake to the south of Santa Clara in the Sierra de Escambray mountains. We were going on a boat trip.

Ernesto picked us up early and we headed south along a road that started rising into thick forest. The temperature immediately dropped ten degrees, springs gushed out of rocks and we could hear birds singing in the trees overhead. Ernesto said this was the place he always drove to for family picnics in the summer. Then we caught our first glimpse of the lake: actually a very wide dammed up river surrounded by dark green mountains. No buildings – just landscape.

Twenty minutes later we were in a motor-boat chugging towards the far end of the lake, where there was supposed to be a spectacular waterfall. Ernesto had hired a boatman for $25, and had arranged for us to eat lunch for $3 each in a peasant cabin high above the lake on the way back from visiting the waterfall.

So here we were, sedately making our way uplake, photographing the tall palms, the wild limestone formations, the water birds, and soaking up the silence. It took nearly two hours to get to the other end, but it was worth it. The deep pools at the bottom of the waterfall were a clear, dark emerald – ideal for a dip. We were the only people there, except for a peasant woman and her son, who had ventured down the mountain to catch a glimpse of exotic tourists.

On the way back, our boatman cut the motor and pointed out Marta’s cabin far above the lake’s sapphire surface, so we jumped ashore and stumbled up a winding path to find our table under palm branches. Cold beers for all and a gorgeous view of lake and sky while Marta and her helper prepared the trout. Then came fishing stories from the boatman, animal stories from Ernesto and school stories from Julian – all in Spanish. I was pleased just to laugh in the right places. Lunch was of course delicious and left us feeling content to be ferried back to the little dock and thence to Santa Clara by our faithful and endlessly resourceful taxista, Ernesto.