The Bay of Pigs...

No placename conveys the world's fear and trepidation of the Cold War back in the 1950's & 60's (at least among those old enough) more than the Bay of Pigs in Cuba, the Bahía de Cochinos. Here, in 1961, the USA staged an invasion to counter Russian atomic missiles discovered in Cuba. The invasion was a disastrous failure but it brought the world closer to nuclear catastrophe than ever before or since. The invasion resulted in 300 deaths, 1000 wounded, and 1200 US troops (mostly Cuban exiles) captured.

Grackles are commonly seen. (Wikipedia)

We visited the Bay of Pigs area, about an hour's drive west from Cienfuegos to see the invasion museum at Playa Girón, and to do some birdwatching, and visit another arts school (see previous blog). The Cubans call the invasion the Invasión de Playa Girón or Invasión de Bahía de Cochinos or Batalla de Girón.

Now, the Bay is beautiful and peaceful, but multiple memorials on the nearby roads at the exact locations of Cubans' deaths serve as a stark reminder of those few days 50 odd years ago.

The museum at Playa Girón, just 200m or so from a beach resort, is a building of modest size and its exhibits are all interpreted in Spanish only. The curators probably never expected an influx of English speaking visitors! We spent maybe an hour there, Lazaro doing much interpretation as we wandered around with our whisperers.

Warm and sunny on our vist to the Bay of Pigs.

Outside the Invasion Museum at Girón.

One interesting learning from this museum was that Castro's base for the defence of Cuba during the invasion was the nearby tiny sugar-mill township of Australia. It seems that sugar mills in that area at least were named after continents!

When US-backed forces attempted to invade Cuba at the Bay of Pigs, the Caribbean nation's revolutionary leader, Fidel Castro, orchestrated his nation's response from Australia. The Australia Township, an old sugar town about 140 kilometres south-east of Havana in the province of Matanzas, is a place far removed from Cuba's tourism hotspots. http://www.traveller.com.au

On the morning of our visit to the Bay of Pigs, we had to get up well before dawn for some first light birding with a local guide. Our buses stopped by the side of a road (Zapata?) and we trooped into what looked like private properties and areas of nature reserve. As we walked around in the dawn hours, property owners sometimes walked around with us, othertimes ignored us.

Grey-Headed Quail Dove (Jerry Oldenettel). We saw him clearly, but it was too dark for us to get an unblurred shot of this fellow.

Same with the blue-headed quail dove. What a face! (Jerry Oldenettel)

The guide was very knowledgeable, and knew exactly where to go. But, it's one thing to see exotic birds, entirely another to get good photos of them. There is no greater challenge in photography than birds in the wild. Dim and speckled light make matters worse. We have had to use some pics from the internet to show the species that we did see. And some of the birds we did capture in the lens are of unknown species - too many different birds too quickly, we're afraid.

Cuban Trogon, the country's national bird. We got a shot, but not as good as this one! (Wikipedia)

Vegetable patch in the bird watching grounds.

We've forgotten what this fellow is.

Another unknown species to us, but what a nice face!

Lazaro pointing a bird out for Rodrigo to video.

Nice coat, but what is he?

We had two Dave's in our group who were specialist birders and ornithologists. They could certainly identify the birds we saw, but unfortunately we have separated from them now. One was Dave Cothran, who lives in the Cascade Mountains in Oregon, a delightful guy who was so enthusiastic about every species we saw. The other Dave was a co-expeditioner from New Jersey, a practiced bird watcher whose commentary could guide you through the trees and foliage to any hard-to-spot example. Dave would sit on the deck of the Pano Rama II for hours on end enjoying the sea birds he spotted.

Cuban endemic, camera-shy, bare legged screech owl. This is our photo, and we haven't found a better one!

The absolute highlight of this birdwatching day was a visit to a private house we simply called the humming bird house in a tiny town called Palpite near Playa Girón. This house had a particular (unknown species) tree in its back yard, described only by Dave C as "having red flowers". But this tree attracted humming birds, including and especially the Cuban bee hummingbird, not only endemic to Cuba but also the smallest bird in the world.

The red flower of the mysterious humming bird tree.

Our best shot of the tiny bee humming bird.

The bee humming bird is hardly bigger than a bee - Dave said it was the size of your thumb from the first knuckle and "weighed less than an American penny". But it attracts a lot of excitement. And, at this tree, we saw plenty of them, as well as the similar, slightly larger and easier to find emerald humming birds. We were so close to these tiny little guys that our whole group (about 20) was mesmerised. That doesn't mean we got any good photos - these little fellows dart around so fast with their wings beating at amazing speeds, they definitely don't pose for you. They can hover, but only do so for a second or less, and they can fly backwards.

What a stunning little guy is the Bee Hummingbird. (Wikipedia)

Male Cuban Emerald. We saw many of these at the humming bird tree. (Wikipedia)

Rodrigo Marra, the expedition video chronicler from Brazil, showed us how he tries to capture a bee humming bird. Simply, he focuses on a particular flower, and prays that a bird will come to it. The birds do seem to follow particular routes, but we don't think he had much success that day.

This unnamed tree has turned one family's backyard into a nice little earner. We suppose any horticulturist worth his salt could identify the tree, and no doubt there are plenty other such trees, but it's this house that has come to the attention of Lindblad National Geographic trip planners.

Rather humble looking accommodation at Palpite, but spruiking lots of facilities.

Garage door in Palpite.

As we bussed back to Cienfuegos, Dave wrapped up the day for us. Cuba has 25 endemic bird species, nowhere else in the world can they be seen, and today we saw 10 of them! He reckoned that made a pretty good day's birding!

Independence, Revolution and Victory...

The only currency available to foreigners in Cuba is the Convertable Peso, commonly known as the CUC. We were able to buy CUCs at the hotel. We were told there are few banks selling CUCs in Havana, and at one, we noticed a long queue outside. 1 CUC = 1 USD, so we suppose this is a pegged rate. Funny how the currency is tied to that of an enemy country!

Cubans earn non-convertable pesos (CUP), and shops catering mainly to locals only accept CUPs. 1 CUC = 25 CUP. We don't know if locals can buy CUC, but they can certainly sell them and buy with them.

With Lindblad catering to our every need, we had little cause to use CUC except for the mandatory CUC0.25 tip in bathrooms and the occasional CUC1 needed to buy off someone insisting on selling you something. Most of our fellow expeditioners were much more enthusiastic shoppers than we, and spent hundreds if not thousands of CUCs on souvenirs, local art (which can be really quite good), cigars (which were sometimes smoked real time) and Santiago de Cuba rum.

Jeff Philippe was the expedition leader for the Havana component of our Cuban tour.

Our breakfasts were mostly taken at the Hotel, while lunches and dinners over several days were at a wide variety of restaurants. These meals were invariably way beyond the means of most Cubans and (we heard) even the quality and quantity of the food was specified by the government, lest tourists come to believe there are food shortages.

Our restaurants were in spectacular or interesting locations, like in old forts, atop tall buildings, or on the waterfront. And, after a while, the meals suffered a degree of repetitiveness. We had lots of chicken, then pork, lobster and maybe beef. Preparation and presentation was quite variable. Accompanying vegetables or salads were pretty limp. Vegetarian options were always available.

Sometimes we could have "local Cuban food" which was something like shredded beef with a brown rice mixed with beans. Such meals were usually quite delicious - it's probably always a good idea to eat local food!

One feature of every restaurant meal, without fail, was a band of musicians with varying interpretations of the Buena Vista Social Club. All bands had CDs and maybe DVDs to sell, and we were pressured to buy them for about CUC10. If we didn't buy, we were expected to tip the band, a "requirement" which caused some embarrassment until we worked out the drill.

Our people to people obligation led to our guides covering recent Cuban history extensively, and we were taken to monuments and museums celebrating Cuba's independence and the revolution. Of particular interest (to both the guides and our American co-expeditioners) was the shambles of the USA Bay of Pigs invasion. It seemed to us two Aussies (we were the only non-Americans in our entire expedition) that the intention was to politely rub American noses into the humiliation of the Bay of Pigs, but those we asked took it in very good spirits and appreciated a refresher on the shame of the past.

The former Presidential Palace, now Revolutionary Museum and the most stunning edifice in Havana.

We covered, but didn't dwell on the time up to Cuba's wars of independence, but it was all new information to us! Our potted understanding (given here to aid our own memory) is that...

• Prior to the "arrival" of the Spanish, Cuba was occupied by three American Indian tribes.
• Christopher Columbus signalled the end of that era with his arrival in 1492, claiming the island for Spain.
• In the 1510's, the Spanish started establishing villages, including Havana in 1515.
• European diseases all but wiped out the natives, and slaves had to be imported to provide cheap labour, just like in the rest of the Caribbean.
• The European Seven years War resulted in invasion by the English, who, during their 11 month supremacy in 1762, transformed Cuba by opening up trade with the American mainland and the Caribbean.
• The Haitian slave revolt led to thousands of French overlords coming to Cuba around 1790, accelerating slavery here, and leading to rapid expansion.
• A rebellion in 1868 was the start of 10 years of war as Cubans attempted to free their island from the yoke of Spain. There were massive casualties, and in the end the rebels lost by Spain promised greater autonomy.
• 1892 saw the Spanish Cuban American War and the rise of the (now) national hero Joseph Marti who united Cuban expats in the quest for independence.
• In 1902, Spain surrended to the USA who granted Cuba independence but slyly retained significant powers including the rights to a permanent military presence at Guantanamo Bay.

Ornate reception room of the former Presidential Palace.

Apparently everyone in this van died in the hail of revolutionary bullets.

The first half of the 20th Century saw great expansion as US interests developed the country while trying to manage unstable governments. The Mafia, largely free of US control here, made great inroads in Cuba. In 1933, Fulgencio Batista seized power in the Sergeant's Revolt and dominated politics for about a quarter of a century. Srong socialism applied in the Batista era but the seeds of revolution were sewn by strong labour unions but high unemployment and a persecuted middle class.

Bullet holes in the wall of the then Presidential Palace mark the 1958 Revolution.

The 1959 Revolution was led by Fidel Castro. But we see and learn in Cuba that collaborators Che Guevara and Camillo Cienfuegos are equally celebrated. Cubans fondly remember Marti for his role in independence, but it seems that the true modern heroes in their hearts are Castro, Guevara and Cienfuegos. Their portraits and memorials are everywhere, and posters and billboards (there is no commercial advertising in Cuba) are everywhere full of "revolución para siempre" sentiment.

Giant memorial to Jose Marti, the father of Cuba's second independence war.

Che Guevara at Independence Square.

And Camillo Cienfuegos on an adjacent government building.

There can be no doubt from our visit that Cubans are profoundly proud of their revolution. During our stay in Havana (and, we expect, beyond) we were shown numerous examples of the benefits of socialism under Castro. In particular, we learn (repeatedly) of the excellence of universal Cuban free education and free healthcare. These particular topics are justifiably sources of Cuban pride, but we suspect that our local guides take particular pleasure at extolling them to the American audience, given the high cost and highly publicised inequities of both in the USA!

How totally free education works, as explained in the exquisite ceremonial room of the University of Havana.

Stunning sculpture of the revered revolutionary leader.

Castro nationalised US assets which Batiste had encouraged, inevitably aligning Cuba more with the USSR, and when, in 1962, the US uncovered nuclear missiles in Cuba and provided the impetus for the next great source of Cuban pride, the abortive US invasion at the Bahía de Cochinos, the Bay of Pigs. The CIA exploited disaffected Cubans who had made it to the USA and established a counter-revolutionary force which struck at the Bay in April 1961, south-east of Havana, but were humiliatingly defeated within three days. This Cuban Missile Crisis had famously brought the world to the brink of nuclear war for a short while.

Museums generally in Cuba seem to have no difficulty in mocking the American leaders associated with the Bay of Pigs.

World's longest cigar rolled in Castro's honour, at a "tobacco cafe".

Lighting up a fresh Cuban cigar.

Debris from a cigar rolling demonstration.

The debacle seriously embarrassed the Kennedy administration, strengthening Fidel Castro's reputation and hold on power. Moreover, it cemented the enmity between the USA and Cuba, and added an extra dimension of strong pride amongst Cubans, opening vast new opportunities for cartoonists and on political billboards. It is only in recent years, that the icy relationship has started to thaw, hence our expedition!