Birding in Cuba

Back in Morsn I set out to find a paladar. The paladar la rueda is a small room in a private home. There's a boombox on an ornate mahogany cabinet, playing songs by the Bukis, a well-known Cuban band. There's a wagon wheel on the wall, and delicately fluted sconces of frosted glass; bud vases hold a curious mix of bright plastic apples and Christmas ornaments. Lunch is flavorful and filling, rice and peas, tomatoes, and fufu—a mashed green banana concoction that originated in West Africa—washed down with Hatuey beer.

Next door a young woman, dark-haired and shy, is selling peanut brittle, the only snack food I've seen in Morsn. I snap up most of her stock and ask her in the morning to come share them on the trail. To my surprise she gives me change in U.S. coins. In 1993 the government allowed Cubans to possess U.S. funds, and they are now able to shop in the dollar stores that were once solely for tourists and diplomats. I wander around a bit, exploring. The streets seem perfectly safe, and I feel at ease. While tourists at the big hotels in Varadero may find themselves pursued by young children begging for small change, pens, or chewing gum, away from the resorts there are few such annoyances. For women, the usual irritations are to be found in tourist areas, but the kind of leering and whistling that one finds in many other countries is rare. I've never felt safer.

Quest for the Bee Hummingbird

A new day brings a new quest: the bee hummingbird. Our aged Soviet jeep finally stops at the edge of a cattle pasture and the driver eases it precariously over some ruts and into the only shade, the sparse foliage of a thorn tree; pulling his straw hat low over his eyes he settles into the patient waiting mode of drivers the world over. We are led by Yaroddys Rodriguez, an 18-year-old with a passion for birds (as well as a passion for women, as he tells us with unself-conscious charm about his many girlfriends).

We head down a gully, across a shaky log mired in wet mud, and over a tall, rickety barbwire fence. Yaroddys clears fences with the grace of a deer, while I lumber over nervously. The holes in the knees of my jeans, freshly patched last week by the Chinese tailor, immediately split open (which later affords the forest's many ravenous mosquitoes an excellent opportunity). As the day comes to a boil we traipse across pitted drying tracks to a large field; a Vietnamese water buffalo eyes us lugubriously and we are suddenly acutely aware of the lack of cover. At the treeline a lonely tomb, freshly whitewashed, silently honors a fallen hero of the revolution; we make out from the bronze plaque that he fought with Che. It's a beautiful resting place.