Greetings friends and members of the community, to all of you who love adventures and experiences outside of city environments in search of an encounter with nature. A few days ago I had the opportunity to live a very exciting experience as part of my professional activity in the geosciences: visiting Cayo Largo del Sur.
Located in the eastern portion of the Canarreos archipelago, on the seas of the marine platform of southwestern Cuba, Cayo Largo is a small island that is a paradise for lovers of the beauty of nature of the Caribbean island landscapes, offering the possibility of enjoying beautiful white sand beaches, a unique fauna, and a wonderful coastal environment adorned by the beauty of the sea and the small keys.
This trip resulted from an opportunity for field research work to be carried out in this key and other smaller adjacent keys for tourism evaluation purposes, for which a multidisciplinary group of specialists from different branches of natural and applied sciences was sent, from Geography, Geology, Biology, Meteorology, Oceanography, Geophysics, Coastal Engineering, among others. A first group was sent days before, and later another small group of 6 people, including myself, were sent to Cayo Largo making the trip by plane, being able to enjoy from the air from the very beginning the insular landscape that was shown at times under a sea of clouds over which we flew.
Upon arrival in Cayo Largo, and after the reception and lodging process, we could begin to enjoy the comfort of the tourist infrastructure of Villa Marina, the place where we would reside in those days, which had recreational places, marinas for fishing and boat rides, in a natural background of a marine environment surrounded by canals and sectors of keys covered by mangrove vegetation.
Among the wonders of that Cuban site, first of all, we could contemplate the beauty of the beaches composed of fine white sands of ooid aspect (egg-shaped) produced by chemical precipitation of calcium carbonate, a very peculiar type of beaches that can only be found in a few places in the world. One of the beaches visited, Sirena beach, is among the most beautiful beaches in Cuba and the Caribbean.
These same sands are found inland turned into rocks, grayish in color, and in the very area of beaches in the process of lithification, which we were able to observe and analyze for the purpose of evaluating their conditions to host infrastructure.
Another of the natural wonders of the place is the population of iguanas and sea turtles of the species of green turtles and loggerheads that abound in the cay, being considered this sector as the natural sanctuary of sea turtles in Cuba.
Within the vegetation complex, the abundance of mangrove forest stands out, which is an important ecosystem for the stability of the keys and their protection against the occurrence of extreme hydrometeorological events such as hurricanes.
After several days studying the place and preparing the bases for the works to be undertaken, we concluded the first stage of general recognition of the characteristics of the place. Cayo Largo is undoubtedly an excellent opportunity for national and foreign tourists to know the wonders of the insular landscapes of the Caribbean in the seas of the south of Cuba, which they can enjoy in a welcoming environment developed by hotels, villas and marinas that offer varied options for leisure and delight in different modalities.
Personally, it was a very nice experience as it was my first trip to this region of the Cuban platform, and I hope to repeat the opportunity to develop new and more detailed works and to enjoy again its natural attractions.
All images are my own, captured with the camera of my Samsung Galaxy A7 cell phone.
Translated at DeepL
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