Qualla: Cayo Coco

Cayo Coco: Introduction

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit No machine-readable author provided. Qyd assumed (based on copyright claims)., Public domain. The island is named for a bird. Cayo Coco takes its name from the white ibis, which locals call the coco bird for reasons that have nothing to do with coconuts and everything to do with the sound the bird makes. At 370 square kilometers, it is the fourth-largest island in Cuba, anchored off the north coast in a chain called Jardines del Rey - the King's Gardens. Buccaneers once hid here. Ernest Hemingway set novels here. Cuban exile militants once shot at a hotel here. And for most of its history, the island held nothing but fishermen, charcoal burners, and birds that outnumbered both.

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Image: No machine-readable author provided. Qyd assumed (based on copyright claims). | Public domain

Cayo Coco: Charcoal, Pirates, and Hemingway's Islands

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Lizardosalazartibau, CC BY-SA 4.0. Cayo Coco's human history splits neatly into before and after. Before the causeway, before the resorts, the island served whoever needed a place the authorities could not easily reach. Buccaneers used it as a hideout during the early colonial period, sheltering among mangroves an...

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Image: Lizardosalazartibau | CC BY-SA 4.0

Cayo Coco: The Causeway Across the Bay of Dogs

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit CC BY-SA 3.0. On July 26, 1988, a 27-kilometer causeway opened across Bahia de Perros - the Bay of Dogs - connecting Cayo Coco to the Cuban mainland for the first time. The project required sixteen months and three million cubic meters of stone, a massive undertaking for a country under econom...

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Image: CC BY-SA 3.0

Cayo Coco: Machine Guns and Margaritas

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Marek Ślusarczyk (Tupungato) Photo portfolio, CC BY 3.0. The first resort on Cayo Coco, the Guitart Cayo Coco, opened in 1993. Within a year, it came under machine gun attack. The Cuban exile group Alpha 66, operating from the United States, launched armed raids against the resort in both 1994 and 1995. No one was injured, but the atta...

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Image: Marek Ślusarczyk (Tupungato) Photo portfolio | CC BY 3.0

Cayo Coco: Reef, Storm, and the Wild Interior

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit User:mausgalaxy, CC BY-SA 2.0 de. Beyond the hotel strips, Cayo Coco remains largely wild. Swamps and scrubland cover the interior, populated by feral cattle that descend from livestock abandoned decades ago. The enormous coral reef running along the north coast draws divers from around the world, its formations ...

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Image: User:mausgalaxy | CC BY-SA 2.0 de