Cuba - Lonely Planet [347]
Baconao is also famous for its crabs. From mid-March to early May, tens of thousands of large land crabs congregate along the coast beyond Playa Verraco, getting unceremoniously squashed under the tires of passing cars and sending up a rare stench as they bake in the sun.
Sights
A dozen painters have studios where their works are displayed and sold in the small artistic community of El Oasis at the turn-off to Club Bucanero, 3km east of the Playa Siboney road.
One of the oddest in a plethora of odd attractions is the Valle de la Prehistoria ( 63-90-39; admission CUC$1; 8am-6pm), a kind of Cuban Jurassic Park cast in stone that materializes rather serendipitously beside the meandering coastal road. Here giant brontosaurs mix with concrete cavemen, seemingly oblivious to the fact that 57 million years separated the two species’ colonization of planet Earth. With your tongue planted firmly in your cheek, you can take in the full 11 hectares of this surreal kitsch park with its 200 life-size concrete dinosaurs built by inmates from a nearby prison. The Museo de Historia Natural ( 63-93-29; admission CUC$1; 8am-4pm Tue-Sun) is also here, but something of an anticlimax after the surrealism of the prehistoric beasts.
What’s the point, is the question that springs to mind when you stumble upon the Museo Nacional de Transporte Terrestre ( 63-91-97; admission CUC$1, camera/video CUC$1/2; 8am-5pm), 2km east of the Valle de la Prehistoria. All very impressive that they’ve nabbed Benny Moré’s 1958 Cadillac and the Chevrolet Raúl Castro got lost in on the way to the Moncada Barracks; but in Cuba where ’50s car relics are as common as cheap cigars, it’s the equivalent of a Toyota Yaris museum in Kyoto.
The main US landings during the Spanish-Cuban-American War took place on June 24, 1898 at Playa Daiquirí, 2km down a side road from the museum. Although they named a cocktail after it, the area is now a holiday camp for military personnel and entry is prohibited.
Ten kilometers further on is the Comunidad Artística Verraco (admission free; 9am-6pm), another village of painters, ceramicists and sculptors who maintain open studios. Here you can visit the artists and buy original works of art.
After a couple of bends in the road you burst onto the coast, where the hotels begin. Jardín de Cactus (admission CUC$5; 8am-3pm), 600m east of Hotel Costa Morena, has 200 kinds of cactus beautifully arrayed along the rocky hillside, with a large cave at the rear of the garden. Keep your eyes peeled for tiny green colibrí (hummingbird) suckling nectar from flowering cacti.
Aquario Baconao ( 63-51-45; admission CUC$7; 9am-5pm), between the Costa Morena and Hotel Carisol, has dolphin shows (with sultry narration) a couple of times a day. It’s a rather tacky spectacle, although you can swim with the animals – if you so desire – for CUC$46.
Every Cuban resort area seems to have an attraction replicating indigenous scenes. Here it’s the Exposición Mesoamericana (admission CUC$1), just east of Club Amigo Carisol – Los Corales. Indigenous cave art from Central and South America is arranged in caves along the coastal cliffs.
At the Laguna Baconao, 2km northeast of Los Corales, you’ll find the Criadero de Cocodrilos (admission CUC$1; 8am-5pm), a dozen crocodiles kept in pens below a restaurant, plus other caged animals such as lizards and jutías (tree rats). Horses are (supposedly) for hire here, as well as boats to ply the lake.
From Playa Baconao, 5km northeast of Los Corales, the paved road continues 3.5km up beautiful Valle de Río Baconao before turning into a dirt track. A dam up the Río Baconao burst in 1994, inundating Baconao village. Soldiers at a checkpoint at the village turn back people trying to use the direct coastal road to Guantánamo because it passes alongside the US Naval Base. To continue east, you must backtrack to Santiago de Cuba and take the inland road.
Activities
The Fiesta Guajira Rodeo (admission CUC$5; 9am & 2pm Wed & Sun) at El Oasis, opposite the turn-off to