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Ciénaga de Zapata National Park |
Itineraries |
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| Naturalistic tours are organized by management authorities (CITMA and EMA in particular), considering first of all the conservation needs of the territory. The most important prescriptive aspects are the number of visitors per day, the frequency of the visits, and the behavior to maintain in the most fragile areas to the human impact. | |
Tour to Rio Hatiguanico |
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At km 103 of the national highway, there is the junction where the departure point for the tour lies. From the highway to the river, where the house of the park keepers lies, there is a distance of 8 km you can cover along a dirt road across savannah areas and more and more impenetrable canebrake. Here you can begin the real tour, on comfortable motor boats which are rather slow and silent. The first 7 km are covered along an artificial channel which has been completely brought back to its natural state, at the edges of which trees and shrubs of various size grow. Beyond this first vegetation line, the canebrake dominates. The channel ends in the point where Rio Hatiguanico springs, with a flow of several cubic meters per second, called by local people "ojo de agua de Indalecio". Therefore, Rio Hatiguanico can be considered a huge resurgence whose water, through a complex karstic system, comes from the mountain chains of western Cuba. From the point where the river springs to its mouth in the inlet of Broa, the dominating vegetation on both banks is represented by the mangrove swamp, with the so-called "mangle rojo" (Rhizophora mangle). Along the part of the river next to the mouth, the manatee lives (Trichechus manatus), although rare and very difficult to observe. The best stretch for bird watching is represented by the first 7 km of the itinerary, where several species of aquatic birds live, in particular migratory birds in winter and "jicoteas", freshwater turtles. |