Guidebook of Bonaire

Bonaire is an island of the Netherlands Antilles, placed in the Caribbean Sea opposite to the coast of Venezuela. With a surface of scarcely 300 km2, it presents a mountainous territory to the north, where there is the biggest altitude of the island, the mount Brandariscon that has approximately 240 meters high. The south nevertheless is a flat area.


Bonaire possesses a warm and dry climate, with an average temperature of 28 grades. The dryness of the island only allows a subsistence farming, for this motive, his economy is based on the cattle and, especially, on the development of the salt works.

The Bonaire salt works, also called “Salinas of the Caribbean Sea” is placed in the southern part of the island, in a flat region and of scarce or void vegetation. From these salt works many tons of salt are exported every year. The vegetation cannot support the high concentrations of this mineral. In addition to providing to important Bonaire exports, these salt works are a tourist attraction, since often numerous colors birds congregate on them, forming a spectacular image.
The commercial Bonaire production is exported across the port locality of Kralendijk, his capital. The increasing tourism has impelled the handmade activities in the island, which is provided with an airfield.

Bonaire served like slaves' center during the colonialism, destined for the Curaçao plantations, therefore most of the population of the island descends from black slaves and promotes little more than 11 thousand inhabitants.

The Flemings with his pink pens, his long paws and his slender neck are easy to see in the Caribbean island. Known by his big variety of flora and fauna, in 1970 the Bonaire government qualified almost everything his coast of marine park and imposed a regulation to preserve the ecology of his beaches.

The scuba divers can observe brilliant sponges of orange color in Bonaire waters. Famous for his grand reefs, this island offers to the divers a wonderful subaquatic world of intricate choral and dazzling fish.

Bonaire is without doubts a peculiar destination in the Caribbean Sea that will not make indifferent those who visit it in his holidays.

Image: Brian and Shannon

• Guidebook of Matanzas, Cuba
• Curiosities: Bonaire
• Guidebook of Key of Saint Lucia, Cuba

Guidebook: Pine grove of the Rio

Pine grove of the Rio is the most western province of the island of Cuba. It is bathed to the north, on the south and on the west for the waters of the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea. It borders to this one on The City of the Havana.

On the north coast there is the archipelago of The Colored ones, a set of isles with wonderful beaches and ocean floors of exuberant beauty.

The south coast, where the bay is opened of Polite, is a low coast, with salt marshes and marshes, and a wide flatness, where there end the rivers that are born in the saws of the interior, like the rivers Hondo and Cuyaguateje.

In Pine grove of the Rio there are the biggest caves of Cuba and a few sceneries of big handsomeness as those who can be in the Vale of viñales and in the Mural of the prehistory. The first one is a beautiful place that is characterized by a few almost vertical elevations of calcareous origin, called flat-topped hillocks.
And l second is a wall painting 120 m high and 180 m wide it was realized by the Cuban painter Leovigildo González, disciple of the Mexican muralista Diego Rivera, in the wall of the flat-topped hillock Two sisters.

The settlers of Pine grove of the Rio are of very humble origin. Mostly they devote themselves to cultivate in tobacco plantations, to the marble extraction and to the ground be employed at diverse tropical products. They are usually very hospitable and it is possible to enjoy them the authentic Cuban kitchen.

The ecological tourism is a sector in growth for the natural wealths of his environment that is provided with big diversity in the vegetation and possesses caves and caves that can turn out to be very attractive for those who like the adventure. The diving is different of the activities that every year attract hundreds of thousands of visitors.

Pine grove of the Rio takes a small village as a capital, with constructions that date fundamentally of the epoch of the Spanish domain over the island of Cuba. He emphasizes the building of the Cathedral in the street Maceo.

The park of the Güira is different of his attractions that, in which the ruins of the Treasury Department find Curtain, the proprietor of all the grounds of the province until 1959. A place of incomparable beauty where it is possible to appreciate the taste that the owner took as the nature. In this park there can be sculptures of bronze and marble in the middle of the mount.

And n San Diego of the baths the tourist will find a spa where he will be able to enjoy the benefits of the thermal waters of the area.

From Things of the Caribbean Sea we recommend to you this one like one of the most economic and beautiful destinations that can be visited in Cuba.

Photo Flickr: Paul Mannix

• Guidebook of Matanzas, Cuba
• Guidebook of Dry dock
• Guidebook of Puerto Rico

Guidebook of Matanzas, Cuba

Often called The city of the bridges, it was founded in 1693. Matanzas is a city that he emphasizes also for the cleanliness of his streets, his constructions, his people and especially for his beaches, being one of the principal tourist poles of Cuba. At present more than 600 thousand persons live in Matanzas.

It is placed in the Occident - center of Cuba on the banks of the bay that takes the same name and that is a port that exports principally sugar. To the north it is washed by the waters of the strait of the Florida and on the South by the Caribbean Sea.

The scenery of the procincia is almost flat in its entirety with the exception of some elevations in the Heights of The Havana - Matanzas and those of Bejucal-Madruga-Coliseo. In the north there is the peninsula of Hicacos, where the famous Dry dock beach is located. A beach of fabulous white sand and crystalline waters that one extends along 3,380 kilometers of coast.

In the south of the province is the Shoe peninsula. A swampy area that lodges the marsh of the same name and that at present is a national park for the wealth of his flora and his fauna.

In the south also there is The bay of Pigs, famous by the landing of troops of Cuban exiled to Miami who tried to lay down in vain the diet of Fidel Castro in 1961.
The city of Violet also belongs to the province of Matanzas and has another bay that takes his name. In this place it was where the Cuban flag been hoisted for the first time.

Other sights in Matanzas are the castle of San Severino, constructed in the century seventeen and the Cathedral of San Carlos, who got up in 1730.

There exist speculations of which in some moment there was contemplated the idea of moving the capital of Cuba to Matanzas but it is something that official never did to himself. Although yes it might be said that it is the capital of the tourism in the island since it receives every year more than two million tourists.

Image: sourmash

• Guidebook of Dry dock
• Guidebook of Key of Saint Lucia, Cuba
• Guidebook of Puerto Rico

Curiosities: Santiago de Cuba

Santiago de Cuba is one of the most oriental cities of the island of Cuba, in the Caribbean Sea. It borders on the provinces of Granma, Holguín and Guantanamo. It was the first capital that had Cuba and that Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar founded in 1514.

The first thing that attracts attention on this city there is his scenery, which combines the green mountains with the blue of the Caribbean Sea, the only topography in the biggest of the Antilles. Part of the Main Saw that gets longer from Granma in the west up to Guantanamo in the East, it is these wonderful elevations that contribute to the country Santiaguera a beauty without equal.

Santiago is a warm and humid ground, with approximately 27 grades of annual average and a relative moisture of 71 per cent. From his port the first expeditions would go out towards the American continent, between them that of Hernán Cortés and that of Juan de Grijalva.

The Bay of Santiago de Cuba constitutes a deep inlet, on a rectilinear and steep coast that scarcely leaves a narrow communication channel with the sea. It was discovered by Cristóbal Columbus in 1494, during his second trip, on his environment there were founded the cities of Santiago del Prado (today known like The Copper) and Santiago de Cuba. Due to the attacks of corsairs and pirates in the epoch of the Spanish colony, the Bay of Santiago was fortified for his defense. The castle of San Pedro of the Rock, declared by the UNESCO, Cultural heritage of the Humanity in 1997, and constructed by the famous Italian engineer Juan Bautista Antonelli, is part of his defensive system.
Other one of the curiosities of Santiago, is The Copper, a sanctum to the Virgin Boss of Cuba that names the city where the cathedral gets up. This is a place of constant peregrination, to which there come every year hundreds of thousands of Cuban parishioners and tourists. Some in search of miracles and stones that contain the mineral of the same name and that supposedly give love and economic prosperity to those who possess them and others are going to know a place of big spiritual and human wealth.

The religion that is professed, as in the whole island, it is a miscellany between the Catholicism and the African santería. The population is black mostly and the music is a freewoman of the city of Santiago de Cuba, where it is possible to find in any corner a rumba or a conga, a born rhythm in this specific area of the island. It is frequent that the visitors assist to religious holidays, called bembés where it is cleaned of negative energies and it is a question of unmelting safety and harmony to the participants, who go out of the ceremony with a sensation of purity and calmness in the body and the mind.

Santiago de Cuba is a city of arts and secrets, of nature and history, a very advisable destination for those who please to spend his holidays in the Caribbean Sea.

Photo Flickr: matthiasschack

• Curiosities on Cuba: Geography
• Curiosities on Cuba: Technology
• Curiosities on Cuba: Holidays, monuments and celebrities

Guidebook of Havana

The City of the Havana is the capital of Cuba, the biggest of the antillas of the Caribbean Sea. It was baptized in 1514 with the name of St Kitts of Havana. It is located to approximately 160 kilometers of the peninsula of The Florida, in the United States. It is the smallest province of the island, but the most inhabited.

Havana has been an inspiration source for all kinds of artists, from his foundation. With an architecture that combines the colonial constructions and buildings with the North American style of the 50s, it has been described by Alejo Carpentier as The City of the columns. This is a city of contrasts in every respect. In her streets can be you reject and buildings I come up demolished, at the time that it possesses constructions luxurious and taken care in certain quarters as The Preserve.

The Miramar quarter is the most luxurious of the capital, with wide avenues of big landscaped dividers, where he emphasizes the Fifth Avenue. In his bosom there are innumerable mansions that were confiscated to the bourgeois class and that today belong to the State.
Also called The City of the Parks, Havana is a very attractive place in the Carib to take a vacation and it receives every year almost 2 million tourists. These can choose between two classes of accommodations: the conventional one in cheap hotels and hotels or the alternative one in single-family dwellings of Cuban that visitors lodge in his housings, already is in rooms conditioned for such a use or in independent residences. The most present hotel chain is Sol Meliá.

There are museums and theaters spread by the whole capital. The earnings are usually very economic, especially if there is met some native one who should buy them, since there are differentiated prices for those who reside in the island. The famous National Ballet of Cuba, as well as numerous theatrical groups and of dance, realize functions every day and especially the weekends, being an option for those that like the art and the culture. There is advisable the Museum of the Revolution, ancient Presidential Palace and the Brief José Mart í, in the Square of the revolution, which possesses a lookout from which it is possible to obtain a beautiful panoramic sight of the Cuban capital. There emphasize the theaters Karl Marx and the Big Theater of Havana.

In Cuba they circulate 2 coins, the Cuban weight (MN) and the convertible weight (CUC). Every tourist who comes must change his money into the last one and it is recommended always to change the money into banks and houses of official changes, especially if one travels only without meeting anybody in the island.

The music is an integral part of this city, where he can enjoy her in many of his bars and snack bars, especially in the historical helmet, very close to the Bay of Havana. This one can cross in car or in called “Lanchita of Rule” that leads passengers to another side, where there is The Church of Rule and Christ of Havana. Also the fortitude of the Knob and the Hut, to that only access is had in car. In the latter complex it usually represent every night, at nine o'clock exactly, the change of Spanish guard, a short spectacle but that assembles every time hundreds of tourists.

To the east of the Havana are his principal beaches. He is worth visiting the beach of Santa Maria, which warm waters and white sand always give the welcome. The principal attraction the Havana, it is his people, who will surprise for his happiness and his hospitality.

Photo Flickr: EduCasabona

• Guidebook of Dry dock
• Guidebook of Puerto Rico
• Guidebook of Matanzas, Cuba

Guidebook of Puerto Rico

This small island placed to the west of The Dominican Republic is the associate free State of the United States of America and a bold and different destination to take a vacation.

Puerto Rico has another three small islands around him, of them the biggest is Vieques, who stands out for his magnificent beaches of white sand in the south and who is considered to be one of the principal tourist poles of the country. Surrounding Vieques there are small islets and keys between which it is necessary to emphasize The Snake that also is advisable for the tourist, since in addition to the exuberant flat, proper ones of the region, and l scenery combines vales and hills with big pastures extensions, doing of the same one a beautiful and calm place to be visited.

To the west of Puerto Rico, on his marine border with The Dominican Republic, the island of La Mona is. With scarcely forty square kilometers, this one constitutes one of the big attractions since it is considered to be a big nature and forest reserve, which it receives in his bosom to many animals species. There is very little inhabited, since the only inhabited area is a Beach Bird, a place of impressive natural beauty that every year receives travelers of all the latitudes.

The biggest nature reserve of Puerto Rico is located in the northeastern end of the island, in the Saw of Luquillo. One of the tops names this park of special handsomeness and it is the top The Yunke, of approximately 1065 meters of altitude. It is part of the called Tropical Forest of the Caribbean Sea and due to his humid and warm climate it has trees of beautiful wood, as the mahogany, the oak and the holy stick. Also it is the biggest source of vegetation and the proper and only animals of the Puerto Rican nation.

Saint John is the cardinal city of Puerto Rico and it turns out to be very attractive so much for his historical helmet, with fortifications inherited from the Spanish domination, as for the modern city. Saint John, which also is an island, was discovered by Columbus on November 19, 1493 and it baptized by the name of Saint John Bautista.

In Puerto Rico one speaks Spanish and English. The natural and tourist values of this island her do a Caribbean destination to be born in mind at the time of planning a holidays trip.

Image: Oquendo I

• Curiosities: Puerto Rico
• List of restaurants in Puerto Rico
• Guidebook of Havana

Curiosities of the Virgin Isles

One of the curiosities of these islands, is that they have changed owner often, since in 1493 Cristóbal Columbus was discovering them and was baptizing with the name that they have at present, in honor of Saint Úrsula and eleven thousand virgins associated with her.

The Virgin Isles s and they place to the east of Puerto Rico, in the Small Antilles and spread between the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. The Virgin Isles of the United States are a group of three islands and fifty islets approximately. The names of three principal islands are Saint Thomas, Saint John and Saint Croix. Charlotte Amalie is his capital and she is to the south of the island of Saint Thomas.

Denmark colonized them in 1966, but during the Napoleonic wars, Great Britain occupied them. Later he would return them to Denmark that in 1917, after forty years of negotiations, sold them for 25 million dollars to the United States of America.

His little more than hundred thousand inhabitants, devote themselves to be employed at the leisure industry and the services in the hotels of the island. Another curiosity is that his settlers although they are North American citizens, cannot vote in the presidential elections.

The United Kingdom nevertheless, there preserves the property of another 36 islands, known as The Islands virgins of the United Kingdom, after his conquest in 1966.

Only 16 of them are inhabited. The capital is in the island of Turtledove, his name is Road Town and it is the only city in the whole archipelago. His entire population scarcely overcomes 17 thousand inhabitants. Road Town has an important port that is visited by numerous tourist cruises.

A governor chosen by the British crown, is the person in charge of the defense, the interior safety, the interior matters, the public services and the courts.

The Virgin Isles are considered to be a national park in the United States. England also has done big efforts to preserve it practically uninhabited.

The Caribbean vegetation, the moderate climate of approximately 26 grades almost the whole year and his wonderful beaches, do of the Virgin Isles an exotic place in which they can be enjoyed a few holidays in contact the nature and simultaneously the civilization.

Photo Flickr: Ingenious Daquella

• Curiosities: Saint Kitts and Nevis
• Curiosities: Martinique
• Curiosities: Islands Contoy

Special: guidebooks for the Caribbean Sea

With the arrival of the cold to Europe, the travelers in search of warm places have the option of the Caribbean paradise. The infinity of forest places, beaches of white sand and crystalline water and cities full of delight, make of the Caribbean Sea a place get lost where and cover up to the last corner of his varied geography.

In Things of the Caribbean Sea we have prepared a special one with the best guides to make use to the maximum of any place of this wonderful destination.

• Guidebook of Key of Saint Lucia, Cuba

• Guidebook of Cancún

• Guidebook of Dry dock

• Guidebook of Santo Domingo

• Guidebook of Cozumel

• Guidebook of Isla Mujeres

• Guidebook of san holguín yokel

• Meteorological forecast in the Caribbean Sea
• Guidebook of Cancún
• Guidebook of Santo Domingo