Is this a Pontiac? It's over 50 years old, but that's about all I know about it. Photo taken in Havana.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Modes of transport 9
These 'podcabs' were found only in Havana. The guy taking the photo in the middle of my photo is Bruce.
Modes of transport 8
The Cuban people are extremely inventive in making their modes of transport, especially in the country.
Modes of transport 5
This was a very popular means of getting from one place to another. The conveyance holding the people is being pulled by a tractor.
Modes of transport 4
This was taken in Camagüey (pronounced ká-ma-way) when we were departing. I think that's an ambulance in front of our bus. The train looked a bit dicey.
Modes of transport 3
I couldn't resist taking this photo. Who, besides a cosmetic saleslady, would own a car of this color?
Modes of transport 2
Yes, we saw a lot of vintage cars, mostly in the cities, but many were in use everywhere. Most were very well kept-up, with shiny paint jobs and clean-looking interiors. Some were mobile wrecks.
Modes of transportation 1
This next couple of posts will be mostly of photos with very little descriptive text. The theme is modes of transportation. This is our little bus. It sat 4 people in single seats on the right side and 10 or 12 in double seats on the left. The back row sat 4, but was occupied most of the time by a whole bunch of luggage, camera bags, spotting scopes, day packs, and Bruce, who had injured his knee on the first day.
Pre- (or post-) List Meeting
Monday, Feb. 16 - Each evening, before dinner, we had a list meeting at which we went over the birds we had seen or heard that day and gave estimates of how many were seen. It was a fairly relaxing time both bfore the meeting and after. In the photo above, the folks you see are (L-R) Carol, Jeannie, Bruce, Giff, Cooby, Tony, me, William (Cuban ornithologist), Judith, Palacio (our driver) and Jesus, our trip facilitator. It was a very fun group of people, all of whom, with the exception of Judith and Carol, knew Tony. These people are excellent field birders and really knew the birds, both by hearing them as well as by seeing them. I learned a lot from them!
Tired Birders
Monday, Feb. 16 - We went out to try to find the Blue-headed Quail-Dove in Guanahacabibes NP. This involved walking quietly while William played the call of the bird. We walked and walked and walked without much success. After a bit, when we were in the same place for what seemed like about a week, people started sitting down and, even those still standing looked pretty tired. Once we got back on our little bus and were driving back to the hotel, we watched in amazement as three of these elusive birds walked across the road we were on! I think everyone got very good views of the beautiful bird. Here, L-R, are the folks in the photo: Carol, Judith, Lar (sitting), Cooby, Ed, Tony (sitting), Giff, Jeannie, and William, our Cuban ornithologist, both sitting.
Bee Hummingbird
Monday, Feb. 16 - Here it is! My Park Pals should remember the pencil photo when realizing how tiny this bird is! This is a male Bee Hummingbird, the smallest bird in the world. Is he not gorgeous?! He actually is blue on his back and his 'hood' really does stick out when he's disturbed, a situation he's in whenever another male hangs around his territory. We watched a couple of these tiny birds on one of the trails behind the hotel. A crippler, as Lar would say. Ivan took this photo.
Hotel for Days 1 & 2
Sun. Feb. 15 - As you can see from the map on a previous post, the roads we were on became smaller and smaller as we forged on. At 3:45PM we passed through the tiny town of La Fe and the countryside became less populated and more wild looking (that's wild in a good way!). We passed a sign indicating that we were now in Guanahacabibes National Park and, at 5:30PM, we reached our digs for the next 2 nights. This hotel is located at the tip of a small peninsula and has, so we were told, some of the best diving in the world. The hotel has 2 different types of habitación, block style, which you can see in the background of the photo, and individual duplexes which are located along a sturdy, but rickety-looking boardwalk in a setting near the woods. We were in the duplexes. They were clean and quite comfy, plus it was fun watching the resident Great Lizard Cuckoos doing their thing around and under our rooms. There is also an extensive network of trails behind the hotel and we had some amazing walks that yielded some truly memorable birds. The weather was quite warm, sunny with many huge pouffy clouds that made for some welcome shade on occasion.
Friday, February 27, 2009
Truck repair
Feb. 15, continued - Once we were into the far west regions of Pinar del Rio, the roads became narrower and were used by many ancient trucks and tractors, as well as horse-drawn vehicles of all shapes and sizes. The Cuban people are extremely helpful to others and many people had come to the aid of this truck driver who was having some sort of malady with his (probably) 50-year old truck. The road was completely blocked with the vehicles of those who were helping fix the truck. Within just a few minutes, vehicles were shifted around and we drove on.
6-lane highway
Feb. 15, continued - This is the view of a quite nice 6-lane highway, called the autopista, out of Havana. As you can see, there are almost no cars (well, in this photo, we have the road to ourselves!). Most cars were seen in towns and cities. There are some newer cars, mostly of Russian origin, on the highways, but, for the most part, the autopista was quiet.
Day 1 - West into Pinar del Rio
Feb. 15. continued - Our route to Maria la Gorda became less wide (see next post) and more crowded with people and vehicles. It was still a pretty easy drive over mostly pretty flat countryside. We had a couple of stops along the way for breaks, lunch and, as you might imagine, for the occasional bird. Weather was patchy clouds, light breezes, and quite warm.
Day 1 Map - Route out of Havana
Feb. 15 - First official day of the trip. This map shows the route our little bus took out of Havana, heading west ultimately into Pinar del Rio province. Since I can put only one image per post, there will be a map of that province and our route on the next post. The third post is a photo of the 6-lane highway we were driving on out of Havana.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Post-trip comment on posts yet to be done
We took a lot of photos on the trip and I may insert some of them with only a brief explanation of what the photo is, where it was taken, and why it's here.
Remember that these posts will show up with the most recent at the top. You have to read from the bottom up. I tried to change that, but can't.
Havana tour
Saturday, Feb. 14 - We were up early and went to breakfast downstairs. A surprisingly large number of people were there, or came in, for breakfast. Fresh fruit, crepes, eggs cooked to order, beans, rice, cereal - it was a sumptuous spread. We departed on our little bus for our tour of Havana and to visit the home of Orlando Garrido, Cuba's premier ornithologist. Dr. Garrido, who wrote the Birds of Cuba field guide, was delightful and charming, entertaining us with tales of some of his past field adventures, his tennis career (played in Wimbledon 4 times), and his birding adventures of late. He shared with us his collection of taxidermy specimens of some of Cuba's endemic birds. The photo is of me holding, yes, a stuffed Cuban tody! He was also gracious enough to autograph our copies of his book! It was an exceptionally interesting visit. We continued our tour of Havana, doing a fair bit of walking. The city is so different from our experience that I sometimes wondered if what I was seeing was real or if I imagined it. After a much-delayed lunch, we headed back to the hotel where Ivan had a nap while I tried to work on this blog. Tomorrow we head to the Guanahacabibes peninsula, so there probably won't be any postings for awhile. (2/26 - little did I know how true that last statement would turn out to be!)
Friday, Feb. 13 - As you can see, Ivan and I met up with Larry in the Cancún airport immigration area. (Ask me sometime about how that happened.) I've never seen so many people crammed into a room that was about 100m long by 50m wide, people with no idea where to go, what was happening, who was in charge, etc. Somehow, everyone sorted themselves into rows and slowly got processed. After that 90-minute experience, we thought we deserved to have a beer in the lounge area past security once we were checked in for our Havana flight. We met up with some of the other trip participants in the waiting area and we all had a very comfy flight into Havana, arriving quite late. Once past Cuban immigration (another interesting experience), we found our bags and had another interesting/complicated/frustrating, but ultimately satisfying experience passing through customs. Our trip leader, Gary Markowski, was waiting for us and whisked us off to our hotel, the majestic Hotel Nacionál in Havana. A good night's sleep awaited us.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
All packed up and ready to go!
I think Ivan and I are ready for this exciting trip. We've done a dry-run packing and are under the 50-pound weight limit. We're carrying some donated equipment from the Birder's Exchange, a branch of the American Birding Association, to volunteers who are working in the environmental/scientific field in Cuba. Ivan's carrying a donated recording device and I have a donated spotting scope and tripod (in addition to our own new scope and tripod!). The bags seem heavy to me, but the scale tells me we're ok. We leave before dawn has cracked in the morning - 6AM flight to Phoenix and then on to Cancún in Mexico. Ivan's brother, Larry, is coming on this trip too, and his plane is scheduled to arrive in Cancún 30 minutes after ours does. Other birders have told us that there's some fine birding to be done at the airport there, so I guess that's how we'll whittle away the time until our 8:45PM flight to Havana. It's hard to believe our departure is tomorrow - remember, I won't be able to post every day, but I will write something every day and will post every time I have the opportunity. ¡Vamos a Cuba!
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