My first trip into the rain forest with the students to see what sort of creatures we can find and what the terrain was like.

After breakfast we got our gear together, that is, bug repellent, long sleeved shirt, long trousers, boots and protection from the sun. We gathered at the main entrance to the school ready for the bus to arrive, Paul had warned me that the Cubans call these busses Wha Wha’s, and it was not long before I found out why! Around the corner came an old coach, puffing out blue smoke from the exhaust and making that familiar diesel engine noise but somehow a lot louder that I had heard before. When we got on, it was not much better, none of that familiar soft internal panelling you get on British buses, the floor was a patchwork of welds and the seats were hard moulded plastic.



Our driver and Paul in the blue shirt.

How can you sleep on a wha wha!

The experience of this mode of transport was, well, an experience, the noise, the fumes and the jolly giant of a driver, who bounced about in his seat, holding on to the open window or leaning against it as he took the corners at some speed. We drove down some, straight but very bumpy roads before we reached what the Cubans call a motorway, now this was something else. It was a three lane highway with a grass verge in the middle, every thing you would expect from a motorway.

That is until you see the cyclists, people selling cheese and jam, horse drawn carts and people doing random u-turns across the grass verge in the middle!

 Finally we turned off the motorway on to a small road that was sign posted “Las Terrazas”, finally we were in the rain forest.

The roads got progressively worse from now on, but still not exactly dirt tracks. Then we came to a guard post, our producer got out and spoke to the guards for what seemed like a fairly long time, probably minuets. Its hard to know what to expect the first time you visit somewhere, especially a country that has a reputation for its military junta. The barrier was lifted and off we went, gears grinding as the driver manoeuvred up the steep hills, well hills anyway. We turned off the road onto a dirt track, one side was a cliff face and the other a drop down to a river, the coach struggled on the rubble surface, hitting branches as it went, finally turning into a clearing where there were log huts and what looked like a tourist picnic spot.

Gear together, cameras to hand and off the wha wha, students formed groups, some to look for spiders and the others to look for reptiles and amphibians and off into the jungle we go…….

I was slightly disappointed at this time because I expected to have to machete my way through the jungle, but in reality, there where unmade roads and pathways that took us through the jungle. But saying that, when you stop and look at what is around you, it becomes all the jungle you could ever want. Lizards, butterflies, birds, snakes, insects and lots more.