Isla de la Juventud

The Isla de la Juventud lies south of the mainland and is the largest of Cuba's offshore islands, with a small capital at Nueva Gerona and almost no tourism. The Punta del Este caves in the southeast hold pre-Columbian paintings in red and black, concentric circles and lines that are among the most important indigenous rock art in the Caribbean. The Presidio Modelo, a set of five circular cell blocks built in the 1920s on the panopticon plan, stands empty outside the town and is open as a museum.

History

Little is known of the island before Columbus, but a cave complex near the beach of Punta del Este holds 235 drawings by its native people, the Guanahatabey; the French traveller Charles Berchon first wrote about them in 1904, and the caves were declared a national monument in 1979. Columbus sighted the island in 1494 on his second voyage, named it La Evangelista and claimed it for Spain; it was also called the Isle of Parrots and Treasure Island, and its pirates and the long dugout canoes used by pirates and natives alike are said to have fed into Stevenson's Treasure Island and Barrie's Peter Pan. For most of its later history it was the Isle of Pines, Isla de Pinos, until it was renamed Isla de la Juventud in 1978; since 1976 it has been a special municipality (Wikipedia, Isla de la Juventud).

What's there

• Punta del Este caves - pre-Columbian paintings in red and black on the cave walls, in the restricted southern zone.
• Presidio Modelo - five circular panopticon cell blocks, empty and open to walk through.
• The black-sand beaches - Bibijagua and others on the northern coast, unusual for Cuba.
• Nueva Gerona - a small grid-plan capital with a marble quarry hill behind it.

When to go

November to April is the dry season. The southern half of the island is a restricted military zone and needs a permit arranged in advance, which takes time. Ferries are subject to cancellation and are booked out well ahead.

What to expect

Getting there is the main difficulty: ferries fill weeks ahead and flights are limited. The southern zone with the caves requires a permit and a guide and cannot be visited casually. Facilities across the island are basic and power cuts are frequent.

Nearby

Cayo Largo is east in the same archipelago, and Batabano on the mainland is the ferry port.

Key facts