Cuba - Lonely Planet [201]
If you just can’t drive any further, there are a number of legal casas particulares in the area including Orlando Caballero Hernández ( 91-32-75; Calle 20 No 5; r CUC$20; ), at the Central Australia sugar mill, with small, clean rooms and some great testimonies, and the more convenient Casa de Zuleida ( 91-36-74; Calle 15A No 7211 btwn 72 & 74; r CUC$15-20; ) in Jagüey Grande behind the hospital. There are more casas in Playa Larga (32km) and Playa Girón (48km).
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BOCA DE GUAMÁ
Boca de Guamá is a tourist creation situated about halfway between the Autopista Nacional at Jagüey Grande and the famous Bahía de Cochinos (Bay of Pigs). Named after native Taíno chief Guamá, who made a last stand against the Spanish in 1532 (in Baracoa), a cluster of restaurants, expensive snack bars, knick-knack shops along with a crocodile farm crowd around a small dock. Here boats wait to take you across Laguna del Tesoro (Treasure Lake) to the main attraction: an Indian-themed resort built to resemble an authentic Taíno village. Tour buses crowd the car park and loud rap music welcomes your passage back in time to the hidden mysteries of pre-Columbian Cuba. You’ll need an extremely hyperactive imagination to make anything out of it.
Sights
Don’t confuse the real Criadero de Cocodrilos (guided visit CUC$5; 8am-5pm) with the faux farm inside Boca de Guamá’s tourist complex. On your right as you come from the Autopista, the Criadero de Cocodrilos is an actual breeding facility, run by the Ministerio de Industrias Pesqueras, where two species of crocodiles are raised: the native Crocodylus rhombifer (cocodrilo in Spanish), and the Crocodylus acutus (caimán in Spanish), which is found throughout the tropical Americas. Sometimes security guards will try to point you across the road to the Guamá zoo, but if you’re persistent you can get a guided tour here (in Spanish), taking you through every stage of the breeding program, from eggs and hatchlings to big, bad crocs. Prior to the establishment of this program in 1962 (considered the first environmental protection act undertaken by the revolutionary government), these two species of marsh-dwelling crocodiles were almost extinct.
The breeding has been so successful that across the road in the Boca de Guamá complex you can buy stuffed baby crocodiles or dine, perfectly legally, on crocodile steak.
The park/zoo (adult/child CUC$5/3; 9am-6pm) has two crocodiles that are often under water trying to beat the stifling 85% humidity. There are other caged animals here.
If you buy anything made from crocodile leather at Boca de Guamá, be sure to ask for an invoice (for the customs authorities) proving that the material came from a crocodile farm and not wild crocodiles. A less controversial purchase would be one of the attractive ceramic bracelets sold at the nearby Taller de Cerámica ( 9am-6pm Mon-Sat) where you can see five kilns in operation.
Aside from the crocodile farm, the main attraction is the Laguna del Tesoro, 8km east of Boca de Guamá via the Canal de la Laguna and accessible only by boat (see right). On the east side of this 92-sq-km lake is a tourist resort named Villa Guamá, built to resemble a Taíno village, on a dozen small islands. A sculpture park next to the mock village has 32 life-size figures of Taíno villagers in a variety of idealized poses. The lake is called ‘Treasure Lake’ due to a legend about some treasure the Taíno are said to have thrown into the water just prior to the Spanish conquest (not dissimilar to South American El Dorado legends). The name Guamá comes from a rebel Taíno cacique (chief) who led a partially successful rebellion against the Spanish in the 1530s near Baracoa. The lake is stocked with largemouth bass, which makes it popular with fishermen.
Sleeping & Eating
Villa Guam