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| Cayo Coco beach |
Cayo Coco and Cayo Guillermo are keys located in the northern coast in province of Ciego de Avila. This region is known as Jardines del Rey, which is first name given (back in 1514) by the discoverer Diego Velázquez to this rosary of isles of the archipelago Sabana-Camagüey, the largest of the four that surround the island of Cuba.
Touched by the waters of Old Canal of Bahamas, Cayo Coco covers 370 square kilometres linked to the mainland by a causeway that crosses Bahía de Perros (Dog's Bay) along 17 kilometers.
Cayo Coco was named after the large population of white ibis (mostly known as coco bird), also identified as the "island of flamingos", due to the large colony of pink flamingos that lives on the south side of the key, providing an unusual and unforgettable great show for those who travel to the key by the causeway, where they can be seen very closely from La Silla lookout, preferably very early in the morning or at sunset.
Cayo Coco has 22 kilometers of beaches of fine sand and greenish transparent waters, located in a practically virgin environment where forests and other plants cover near 90% of the territory. Several lagoons provide an ideal habitat for many species.
Another causeway links Cayo Coco to Cayo Guillermo, a small isle of 13 square kilometers mentioned in Ernest Hemingway’s "Islands in the Stream", when he described how green and promising this place looked to him. Its three beaches and among them Playa Pilar, considered the most beautiful one of the archipelago Sabana-Camagüey, have a total length of four kilometers and the scenic value is reinforced by the existence of the highest dunes in the Caribbean that reach up to 15 meters.
The town of the Rooster, as Morón is mostly known, is the closest one to Cayo Coco and Cayo Guillermo. It still preserves some buildings of high architectural value and in the outskirts of the town you can see some of the remains of La Trocha de Júcaro a Morón, a defensive system built by the Spanish army to try to stop the Cuban Liberation Army from moving from east to west, and considered one of the most important military engineering works throughout all the Américas.