Cayo Coco: flamingos and endless beaches

The Playa Pilar, among the most photographed beaches on the island, takes its name from Ernest Hemingway's fishing boat, the author having frequented these waters for deep-sea fishing.

In the internal lagoons, boat excursions allow you to observe hundreds of pink Caribbean flamingos that nest permanently in the area.

Crossing the pedraplén, the elevated causeway built in 1988 over the sea to connect the island to the mainland, you spot mangroves and schools of fish visible directly from the asphalt, nearly twenty-seven kilometers suspended over water.

Toward evening, the long white beach of the island offers one of the last swims of the day before sunset over the Caribbean, with the sand still warm beneath your feet.

The construction of the causeway altered the natural water circulation between the lagoons, a side effect that Cuban authorities had to correct in subsequent years by opening new channels.

Pink flamingos owe their coloration to a diet of shrimp and algae rich in carotenoids, the same substance that gives carrots their orange color.