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Isla de la Juventud
(Special Municipality)
The Caribbean’s sixth-largest land mass is an erstwhile ‘Treasure Island’ that became a prison
and, later on, a giant school. Name-wise it’s had as many incarnations as Castro’s had assassination plots: Siguanea, Juan El Evangelista, Parrot Island and the Isla de Pinos are just some
of the titles that were used before arriving in 1978 at the more topical Isla de la Juventud,
a reference to the thousands of students who studied here in the 1960s and ’70s.
A sleepy backwater even by Cuban standards, La Isla – as most locals call it – is rarely
visited by main island tourists who prefer the more iconic attractions of Havana and the
north-coast resorts. The situation isn’t helped by poor transport links; the daily flights here
are often booked up weeks in advance, and the fickle boat service is a frustrating exercise
in exasperation requiring a lot of patience.
Downbeat Nueva Gerona is the island’s affable but unremarkable capital, a hotchpotch
of sleepy squares and even sleepier streets where little has disturbed the afternoon reverie
since, oh, 1959.
The Isla’s illustrious past residents include a colony of ambitious Americans (who tried
unsuccessfully to make the island into an American garden suburb), a young José Martí, tens
of thousands of African students, a few hundred crocodiles and prisoner number RN3859,
better known to the world and history as Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz.
The largest island in the Archipiélago de los Cannareos, the Isla’s closest cousin is Cayo
Largo del Sur, a tourist idyll famous for its turtles and large white (nudist!) beaches.
HIGHLIGHTS
„ Beach Hike Trek the wide, white
(sometimes nudist) beaches from Playa
Sirena (p195) back to Playa Lindamar on
Cayo Largo del Sur
Nueva
Gerona
Punta
Francés
Cayo Largo
del Sur
Criadero
Cocodrilo
„ Go Slow Spend a lazy afternoon in the
Playa
Sirena
streets and squares of Nueva Gerona (p188)
„ Crocodile Smile Investigate an important
crocodile conservation project at the Isla’s Criadero Cocodrilo (p194)
„ Going Deep Wrecks, walls, coral gardens and caves; Punta Francés (see boxed text, p190) is
the best place to dive in Cuba
„ Turtle Watch Spend the evening watching turtles nesting on the moonlit beaches of Cayo
Largo del Sur (p196)
„ TELEPHONE CODE: 046
„ POPULATION: 86,637
„ AREA: 2398 SQ KM
ISLA DE LA JUVENTUD
(SPECIAL MUNICIPALITY)
Those that do battle through, often come to dive. The dramatic reefs off Punta Francés
in the island’s sheltered southwest are deemed to be the best in Cuba, and perhaps even
the Caribbean.
186 I S L A D E L A J U V E N T U D
ISLA DE LA JUVENTUD
(SPECIAL MUNICIPALITY)
History
The first settlers on La Isla were the Siboney
Indians, a pre-ceramic civilization who arrived on the island around 1000 BC via the
Lesser Antilles and settled down as hunters
and fishermen on the coasts. Naming their
new-found homeland Siguanea, they made
tools from conches and other shells and left
a fascinating set of cave paintings in Cueva
Punta del Este (p195).
By the time Columbus arrived on these
shores in June 1494, the Siboney had long
departed (either dying out or returning
to the mainland) and the intrepid navigator promptly renamed the island Juan El
Evangelista, claiming it for the Spanish crown.
But, knotted with mangroves and surrounded
by a circle of shallow reefs, the Spanish did
little to develop their new possession.
Instead La Isla became a hideout for pirates, including Francis Drake, John Hawkins,
Thomas Baskerville and Henry Morgan. They
called it Parrot Island, and their exploits are
said to have inspired Robert Louis Stevenson’s
idea for the novel Treasure Island.
In December 1830 the Colonia Reina
Amalia (now Nueva Gerona) was founded,
and throughout the 19th century the island
served as a place of imposed exile for independence advocates and rebels, including José Martí. Twentieth-century dictators
Gerardo Machado and Fulgencio Batista
followed this Spanish example by sending
political prisoners – Fidel Castro included –
to the island, which had by then reincarnated for a fourth time as Isla de Pinos (Isle
of Pines).
Aside from its Spanish heritage, La Isla
also has a marked English influence. During
the late 19th century, some fishing families
from the British colony of the Cayman Islands
established a settlement called Jacksonville
(now Cocodrilo) on the southwest tip of
Isla de Pinos; you’ll still occasionally meet
people who can converse fluently in English.
Additionally, just prior to Cuban independence in 1902, the infamous Platt Amendment
included a proviso that placed Isla de Pinos
outside the boundaries of the ‘mainland’ part
of the archipelago. Some 300 US colonists
established themselves here soon after, and
only in March 1925 did the US recognize the
island as an integral part of Cuba.
The Americans stayed and thrived making
good business from the island’s first (but not
lonelyplanet.com
the last) citrus plantations and building an
efficient infrastructure of banks, hotels and
public buildings. During WWII, the Presidio
Modelo was used by the US to inter Axis prisoners and by the 1950s La Isla had become a
favored vacation spot for rich Americans who
flew in daily from Miami. The decadent party –
which by this point included the age-old staples of gambling and prostitution – ended
rather abruptly in 1959 with the ascendancy
of Fidel Castro.
Before the Revolution Isla de Pinos was
sparsely populated. In the 1960s and 1970s,
however, tens of thousands of young people
volunteered to study here at specially built
‘secondary schools’ in the countryside, which
now dot the plains in the northern part of the
island. Students at these schools worked the
fields in shifts, creating the vast citrus plantations that can still be seen today. In 1978 their
role in developing the island was officially
recognized when the name was changed for
the fifth time to Isla de la Juventud (Isle of
Youth). Numerous young people from Africa
have also studied here, and foreign students
still come to the island today, though in
smaller numbers.
Parks & Reserves
Punta Francés is a 60-sq-km National Marine
Park on the Isla de la Juventud, about twothirds of which is under the water.
Getting There & Around
Getting to La Isla requires a bit of effort.
There are two options; airplane (book early)
and boat (a trip that should be straightforward, but rarely is). The boat will take you
to capital Nueva Gerona, a town that is easily negotiated on foot; but to see the rest of
the island you need to decipher the unreliable local bus service or commission a car or
taxi. There are no tourist buses or trains on
the Isla.
ISLA DE LA JUVENTUD
One of the most welcoming places you will
come across in Cuba, Isla de la Juventud
is a world apart from anywhere else on the
archipelago. The laid-back pace and opportunities for getting (way) off the beaten
track here will appeal to escape artists and
adventure types alike. While the hotel scene