Isla de Juventud

Although 350 islands make up the Archipielago de los Canarreos, Isla de la Juventud is by far the biggest of them and this region is administered from the island's capital, Nueva Gerona. Much of the island is flat and the Cienaga de Lanier is Cuba's second-largest swamp. Isla de la Juventud is the least populated region of Cuba, with most people living in the north of the island. Once known as Parrot Island, it was a hideout for pirates like Francis Drake, John Hawkins, Thomas Baskerville and Henry Morgan, and it inspired Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island. The local economy turns on cattle ranching and grapefruit plantations, and the unhurried way of life and unspoilt surrounds are the major attraction. Just getting to Isla de la Juventud, by boat or by plane, is a bit of an adventure. There are Indian cave paintings at Punta del Este and great scuba diving along the Pirate Coast drop-off at Punta Frances. The coral keys to the east of Isla de la Juventud have turtles, iguanas and pelicans that seem indifferent to human company.

What to Do
Activities include scuba diving fro everyone from beginner to professionals, sunning, swimming, seafaris, visits to beautiful Punta Frances Beach, excursions to other places in the area, trips to Nueva Gerona and to the black-snad beaches on the northern coast, and visits to Havana and Cayo Largo.

Nearby Places of Interest
The Isle of Youth, the second largest island in the Cuban archipelago, is famous for its citrus fruit, its marble quarries, the black-sand beaches on its northern coast and the excellent white-sand beaches on its southern coast. There are important artistic and handicrafts movements, fascinating stories about burried treasure and a large infrastructure of services.
The Punat del Este caves are one of the island's main attractions. One of them-descibed as the "Sistine Chapel of the Caribbean Rupestrian Art"- contains more than 200 aboriginal pictographs.

The island also has a large ecological preserve, with thick forest of tropical trees. A high proportion of the flora (which includes carnivorous plants) is endemic. The fauna includes large colonies of parrots, iguanas and wild boars.

The former Model Prison-now a museum-is where several generations of Cuban revolutionaries were imprisoned. They included Fidel Castro and his comrades, after their attack on the Moncada Garrison in 1953. Lanier Swamp has a crcodile-breeding center.