It’s the last day that I am with Rodolfo and the group…
For the 1st time since I joined them, we managed to leave on time at 8.30am for Playa Larga and Giron (where I will be dropped off), as it is the group’s preference to reach Havana before it gets dark and it is a 3 hour drive from Giron.
Interestingly, I found out it is easy to manipulate the gender of the crocodile, by monitoring the temperature when the eggs are incubated. There also needs to be a balance in gender ratio of about 1 male to 5 female, as a male crocodile will mate with 5 female crocodiles at any one time.
Another interesting fact I learnt was that there is no way to tell the gender of a crocodile from the surface. Their sexual organs is hidden on the inside of the body, so the only way to know whether it’s a male or female is to poke on the underside of the crocodile body, where the organs are hidden.
Next stop, Playa Larga, located on the Caribbean side of the Island. It wasn’t really a beach, but a small area where people can step in to snorkel or dive. The water was super clear, with perfect temperature water. Lots of fishes swimming just near the shore, so not a need to swim too far out to snorkel.
After about 1-2 hrs at the Playa, we made our way to Giron for late lunch (3.30pm), where we had a chance to taste the local crocodile meat, as well as tortoise meat. I had eaten crocodile meat previously, and had found it tough, and thus was never a meat of my preference. The local crocodile meat displayed the same toughness.
It was however my first time taking tortoise meat, which didn’t taste too bad, though I was more uneasy eating it knowing that it was tortoise.
This was my last meal with the group on this trip. I had a lot of fun times, however it wasn’t without frustrations, primarily related to the dynamics in the group and being kept out of the loop on the plans.
Each of the individual in the group was really nice, but when combined together, different people wanted different things, thus led to confusion. It didn’t help that I didn’t understand much Spanish to better understand what was going on.
Even up till the moment before I left, I had no idea how I was going to get to Cienfuegos, and travelling with such uncertainty made me uneasy.
Nevertheless, if I had not travelled with the group, I would never had covered some of the places in Cuba, nor seen or do some of the things that was certainly more fun as a group.
Till the next time we meet again!
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