Cienfuegos' Botanical Garden, A Must See in Cienfuegos, Cuba!

Botanical Garden, Cienfuegos, Cuba

W went for a city tour of Cienfuegos, Cuba, about an hour and half ride from our resort.

Our first stop was the Botanical Garden located about 14 km from the city centre of Cienfuegos.

Majestic tall palm trees lining the entrance to the Cienfuegos Botanical Garden

Cuba has a tremendous number of diverse and unique flora and plants on its island.

As soon as we stepped off from our tour bus, we were welcome by carpets of pink flowers on the forest ground.













 This pink carpet came from this flower, called Catalina, the national flower of Cuba.

This is my most favourite picture taken at the Cienfuegos' Botanical Garden in Cuba

This flower comes in pink as well as in white colour. A beautiful flower!

 The Botanical Garden has an area of 97 hectares, one of the oldest institutions of its kind in Cuba.

The banyan tree, also called the Tarzan Tree by local kids in Cienfuegos, Cuba

It is founded in 1901, by Edwin Atkins and his wife, both Americans.








 

The Atkins arrived in Cuba in 1899 in search of sugar canes, the island's most precious commodity.

Found of collecting tropical plants, they imported many rare and unique tropical plants to Cuba from countries such as China and India.

The Banyan Tree 

The banyan tree, also called the Tarzan Tree by local kids, with its long roots dangling from the branches, grows easily when the roots touch the ground.

Iron wood tree is the tree with the strongest wood which is good for making furniture. 

Unfortunately, while Cubans were building the railway, the Iron Wood tree was used widely therefor almost cause the tree to extinct. Right now, the Iron Wood Tree is under protection and not allowed to be cut down.

Bamboo trees can grow to full height in 3 months time in Cuba

There is a good collection of bamboo trees in the garden.


A bamboo tree can grow to its full height in a mere three months’ time, a renewable resources that can used for building and many other purposes.

We learned a lot form the botanical garden's botanist.

 Our tour guide for this session was a botanist from the botanical garden and he provided us with a wealth of information about many of the plants and trees there.

Currently there are over 2000 exotic species of tropical plants growing in this garden.














Many of these plants we have never seen or read about in books and magazine.

The most interesting tree we saw was the one with the one with a coconut fruit like hanging on the tree.

It has a top that detaches from the fruit as if someone has carved it off perfectly ; the top falls to the ground when it is ripe.

One of my favourite unique trees we saw in the botanical garden was this tree below:

My favourite tree in the Cienfuegos Botanical Garden - the Sausage Tree!

It is called the Sausage Tree! It looked very interesting with sausage like fruits dangling from the branches of the tree.

The Elephant Feet Tree

We saw a few of this tree which is called Elephant Feet.

The Royal Palm Tree of Cuba has many uses for Cubans

We saw many different types of palm trees.

The Royal Palm Tree of Cuba has  many uses, i.e. palm leaves can be used for building roof, weaved into baskets, mats while the wood from the trunk can be used for building material.

This is a very poisonous tree!

The most scary tree we saw was these trees, but I couldn't remember what they were called.

These trees look like a kind of palm trees but they are very poisonous. We need to keep away from them!

We had some refreshments at the botanical garden's restaurant

After our tour of the garden, we went into the open restaurant for some refreshments.

I like these seats carved out of old tree stumps - beautiful art work!

It was a wonderfully informative visit at the Cienfuegos Botanical Garden!

We have seen and learned so much about numerous interesting plants in Cuban at the Botanical Garden.















This is one tour we highly recommend to visitors and must see when one is visiting the city of Cienfuegos in Cuba.

R.T.
Cienfuegos Botanical Garden
Cienfuegos, Cuba




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Enjoying a Fabulous Sunset on a Cuban Beach Near Trinidad Del Mar

The Cuban sunset is beautiful! We love every minute of it.

We enjoy watching the sunset on the beach at our Cuban resort

Unlike our sunset experience in Fiji, our first sunset experience in Cuba was a very pleasant and gradual one instead.

I remember well when we were vacationing and staying in a brule on a Fijian island in the late 1980's. We were young and brave. It was shortly after a Fijian uprising and foreign tourists were staying away from visiting the country.

Young and foolish, we visited the island anyway. There were few tourists on that beach resort. We were among the handful of guests staying there at the time.

Watching the Cuban sunset is a pleasant experience!

One day, it was around 3pm when we went out to enjoy the beach and there were only us and a couple other people.

With his camera in hand, my husband went around to explore the beach area close by while I was sunbathing on a lounge chair.









Shortly after my husband left, the sun started going down at around 4ish, I sat up looking around and discovered that I was the only person left on the beach.


The sun was going down fast and the area becoming dark right away. I was absolutely alone without my husband or anyone in sight on a wide open beach area as far as my eyes could see.

Watching the sunset is one of our most favorite activities wherever we are vacationing in the world

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   

                                                            As a woman, my sense of caution heightened as the area grew darker.

I kept calling for my husband worrying about his and my safety. Years later, I still remember vividly the fearful thoughts going through my mind:

What happened to my husband?
Was he safe?
Did he get hurt?
Would I be safe on this beach alone?
What should I do if someone emerged from the dark and attacked me?




In less than 15 minutes, the sun went down completely!

It was not an enjoyable sunset experience for me in Fiji at all as the sun went down too fast.











However, the sunset scene on a Cuban beach where we are is completely different.















The sun starts going down gradually and we could enjoy the scenery for about an hour, taking advantage of the warm glow and spectacular scenery.















We love watching the Cuban sunset!




R.T
on a beach near
Trinidad Del Mar
Cuba 

A Fantastic Snorkeling Experience Near the Trinidad Del Mar Coral Reef in Cuba

                                                         
Day 6

Cuba is known for its white sandy beaches and fine weather.
It has more than 300 sunny days a year.











This is my third time visiting Cuba in the last two years. We have not had one rainy day yet during our past three vacations here.











One of the favorite activities I enjoy doing is snorkeling while vacationing in a tropical country.

Today we did just that.

Another couple and we  signed up for this activity at one of the activity booths on the beach for the 12:30pm session.





We waited but the boat did not come to pick us up until 1:00pm.

Knowing that we would be swimming in the open sea, we made sure our life jackets were put on properly.                     



















The small boat took us about one mile away from shore.













It was a little windy and we got wet by the waves splashing on us.

I was thinking might be the water would be too cold for snorkeling. This is their winter in Cuba.

With both our life jackets and  snorkeling equipment properly strapped on, we went into the ocean.

As soon as we got into the water, it was not too bad at all! The ocean water was much warmer than I had anticipated.






However, I did swallow some salt water initially. It took me a few minutes to get used to the mask and breathing through the tube.

Each time I went snorkeling, I learned something new. Getting used to the water and breathing through the mouth piece properly,  I was able to breathe and stay longer under water this time.


What an amazing view I saw under the Cuban ocean water! There were so many fish swimming by and around me that it was as if I were swimming in a huge aquarium!

Colourful fish of various sizes and colours were swimming by and around me in the Cuban coral reef!

There were beige,  purple and blue corals of different sizes swaying side to side; gold colour rocks scattered everywhere on the ocean floor; fish of different sizes and colour darting around everywhere.

I have never seen such beautiful, colourful and lively scenery in my life!

We snorkeled for about 45 minutes. I had to come up a few times to adjust my equipment and spill out some salty water.

Emil and the other younger folks were able to stay in the water for much longer than I could. He never went up once as he was having a blast in the water.

What I have seen in many world renowned aquariums could not compare to the view of what I saw in this coral reef in Cuba.

It was a totally awesome experience!


R.T.
At a Cuban Coral Reef
near Trinidad Del Mar, Cuba

Picture credit - Many pictures, especially the underwater ones were taken by Emil (a fellow tourist from Mississauga, Canada)
Thank you, Emil, for sharing these great pictures with me!