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Return to Cuba 1895

January 12th 1895, the North American authorities stop the steamship Lagonda and two other suspicious ships, Amadis and Baracoa at the Fernandina port in Florida, confiscating weapons and ruining Plan de Fernandina (Fernandina Plan) January 29th, He draws up the order of the uprising, subscribing it with general Jose Maria Rodriguez and Enrique Collazo. They decide to move to Montecristi, to join Máximo Gómez and to plan out the start of the uprising. Martí had persuaded Gómez to lead an expedition to Cuba. The expedition finally took place on February 24. A month later, Martí and Gómez declared the Manifesto de Montecristi, an “exposition of the purposes and principles of the Cuban revolution”.

Before leaving for Cuba, Martí wrote his “literary will” on April 1, 1895, leaving his personal papers and manuscripts to Gonzalo de Quesada, with instructions for editing. Knowing that that majority of his writing in newspapers in Honduras, Uruguay, and Chile would dissapate, Martí instructed Quesada to arrange his papers in volumes. The volumes were to be arranged in the following way: volumes one and two, North Americas; volume three, Hispanic Americas; volume four, North American Scenes; volume five, Books about the Americas (this included both North and South America; volume six, Literature, education and painting. Another volume included his poetry.

The expedition composed of Marti, Gomez, Angel Guerra, Francisco Borreo, Cesar Salas and Marcos del Rosario, left Montecristi, Dominican Republic to Cuba on April 1, 1895. Although there were delays and desertion by some members, they evetually got to Cuba. They landed at Playitas, near Maisi Cape, Cuba, on April 11. Once there, they made contact with the Duban rebels, who were headed by the Maceo brothers, and started fighting against Spanish troops. By May 13, the expedition reaches Dos Rios. May 19, Gomez faces Ximenez de Sandoval’s troops and orders Marti to stay rearguard. Marti seperated from the bulk of the cuban force, enters the Spanish line.

The United States, Venezuela 1880–1890
For a short period of time, Martí was allowed to go back to Cuba. In Havana, Martí once more made a plan to gain independence from Spain. Once again, he was sent as a prisoner to Madrid, leaving behind his family.  His stay in Madrid would be short and he would move to New York, securing passage for his family to New York from Cuba in 1880. Once in New York, Martí’s wife, not understanding his commitment to the struggle in Cuba, criticized his lack of support for his family and returned to Cuba with their son. The fact that his wife never shared the convictions central to his life was an enormous personal tragedy for Martí. He turned for solace to Carmen Miyares de Mantilla, a Venezuelan who ran a boardinghouse in New York, and he is presumed to be the father of her daughter María Mantilla, who was in turn the mother of the actor Cesar Romero, who proudly claimed to be Martí’s grandson.
In 1881 Martí travelled to Venezuela and founded the Revista Venezolana, or Venezuelan Review. The journal provoked the wrath of Venezuela’s dictator, Antonio Guzmán Blanco, and Martí was forced to leave for New York
In New York he worked as a newspaper reporter and was also a correspondent for La Nación of Buenos Aires and for different Central American journals, especially La Opinion Liberal in Mexico City. At the same time, Martí wrote poems and translated novels to Spanish. He worked for Appleton and Company and, “on his own, translated and published Helen Hunt Jackson’s Ramona. His repertory of original work included plays, a novel, poetry, a children’s magazine, La Edad de Oro, and a newspaper, Patria, which became the official organ of the Cuban Revolutionary party”. Also, he worked very hard by serving as a consul for Uruguay, Argentina, and Paraguay. Throughout this work, he preached the “freedom of Cuba with an enthusiasm that swelled the ranks of those eager to strive with him for it”.
Martí knew that the independence of Cuba needed careful planning and would take time. This is why Martí refused to cooperate with Máximo Gómez and Antonio Maceo, two Cuban military leaders, when they wanted to invade immediately in 1884. Martí knew this was too early and later events proved him right.

The United States, Central America and the West Indies 1891–1894
On January 1, 1891, Martí’s essay “Nuestra America” was published in New York’s Revista Ilustrada, and on the 30th of that month in Mexico’s El Partido Liberal. He actively participated in the Conferencia Monetaria Internacional (The International Monetary Conference) in New York during that time as well. On June 30 his wife and son arrived to New York. After a short time, in which Carmen Zayas Balán realized that Martí’s dedication to Cuban independence surpassed that of supporting his family, she returned to Havana with her son on 27 August. Martí would never see them again.

In September Martí became sick again. He intervened in the commemorative acts of The Independents, causing the Spanish consul in New York to complain to the Argentine and Uruguayan governments. Consequently, Martí resigned from the Argentinean, Paraguayan, and Uruguayan consulates. In October he published his book Versos Sencillos.

On the 26 of November, he was invited by the Club Ignacio Agramonte of Tampa, Florida, a celebration to collect funding for the cause of Cuban independence. There he gave a lecture known as “Con Todos, y para el Bien de Todos”. The following night, another lecture, ” Los Pinos Nuevos”, was given by Martí in a gathering in the honor of the medical students killed in 1871. In November artist Herman Norrman painted a portrait of José Martí.
On January 5, 1892, Martí participated in a reunion of the emigration representatives, in Cayo Hueso, where the Bases del Partido Revolucionario (Basis of the Cuban Revolutionary Party) was passed. He began the process of organizing the party. To raise support and collect funding for the independence movement, he visits some tobacco factories, where he talks to the workers.

In March 1892 the first edition of the Patria newspaper, related to the Cuban Revolutionary Party, was published, funded and directed by Martí. On April 8, he was chosen delegate of the Cuban Revolutionary Party by the Cayo Hueso Club in Tampa and New York. From July to September 1892 he travelled through Florida, Washington, Philadelphia, Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Jamaica on an organization mission among the exiled Cubans. On this mission, Martí made numerous speeches and visited various tobacco factories. On December 16 he was poisoned in Tampa.

In 1893, Marti travelled through the United States, Central America and the West Indies, visiting different Cuban clubs. His visits were received with a growing enthusiasm. On May 24th he mets Rubén Darío, the Nicaraguan poet in a theatre act in Hardman Hall. On June 3rd he had an interview with Máximo Gómez in Montecristi, where they planned the uprising. In July he met with General Antonio Maceo in San Jose, Costa Rica.
In 1894 he continued travelling for propagation and organizing the revolutionary movement. On January 27 he published ” A Cuba!” in the newspaper Patria where he denounced collusion between the Spanish and American interests. In July he visited the Mexican president of the Republica, Porfirio Díaz, and travelled to Varacruz. In August he prepared and arranged the armed expedition that would begin the Cuban revolution

JOSE MARTI

José Julián Martí Pérez (January 28, 1853–May 19, 1895) is a Cuban national hero and an important Latin American literary figure. In his short life he was a poet, an essayist, a journalist, a revolutionary philosopher, a translator, a professor, a publisher, and a political theorist. Through his writings and political activity, he became a symbol for Cuba’s bid for independence against Spain in the 19th century and is referred to as the “Apostle of Cuban Independence”. He also fought against the threat of United States expansionism into Cuba. From adolescence, he dedicated his life to the promotion of liberty, political independence for Cuba and an intellectual independence for all Spanish Americans.

Born in Havana, Cuba, Martí began his political activism at a young age. From then on, he would travel extensively in Spain, Latin America, and the United States raising awareness and support for the cause of Cuban independence. His unification of the Cuban emigré community, particularly in Florida, was crucial to the success of the Cuban War of Independence against Spain. He was a key figure in the planning and execution of this war, as well as the designer of the Cuban Revolutionary Party and its ideology. He died in action on May 19, 1895, during the Cuban War of Independence.

Martí is considered one of the great turn-of-the-century Latin American intellectuals. His written works consist of a series of poems, essays, letters, lectures, a novel, and a children’s magazine. He wrote for numerous Latin American and American newspapers; he also created a number of newspapers himself. His newspaper Patria was a key instrument in his campaign for Cuban independence. The concepts of freedom, liberty, and democracy are prominent themes in all of his works. In many literary circles, Martí is considered the father of the literary movement Modernismo, predating and influencing Nicaraguan poet Rubén Darío and other poets, such as Gabriela Mistral

Life

Early life: Cuba 1853–870

José Julián Martí Pérez was born on January 28, 1853, in Havana, at 41 Paula St., to a Spanish Catalan father, Mariano Martí Navarro, and Leonor Pérez Cabrera, a native of the Canary Islands. Martí was the elder brother to seven sisters: Leonor, Mariana, Maria de Carmen, Maria de Pilar, Rita Amelia, Antonia and Dolores. He was baptized on February 12 in Santo Ángel Custodio church.

When he was four, his family moved from Cuba to Valencia, Spain, but two years later they returned to the island where they enrolled José at a local public school, in the Santa Clara neighborhood where his father worked as a prison guard. In 1865, he enrolled in the Escuela de Instrucción Primaria Superior Municipal de Varones that was headed by Rafael María de Mendive. Menidive was influential in the development of Martí’s political philosophies. In April the same year, after hearing the news of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, Martí and other young students expressed their pain—through group mourning—for the disappearance of a man who had decreed the abolition of slavery in a neighboring country. In 1866, Martí entered the Instituto de Segunda Ensañanza where Mendive financed his studies.

Martí signed up at the Escuela Professional de Pintura y Escultura de La Habana (Professional School for Painting and Sculpture of Havana) in September 1867, known as San Alejandro, to take drawing classes. He hoped to flourish in this area, but did not find commercial success. In 1867, he also entered the school of San Pablo, established and managed by Mendive, where he enrolled for the second and third years of his bachelor’s degree, and assisted Mendive with the school’s administrative tasks. In April 1968, his poem dedicated to Mendive’s wife , A Micaela. En la muerte de Miguel Ángel appeared in Guanabacoa’s newspaper El Álbum.

Martí had a precocious desire for the independence and freedom of Cuba. He started writing poems about this vision, while, at the same time, trying to do something to achieve this dream. When one of his friends joined the Spanish army, Martí and a friend wrote him a “reproving letter” which was later discovered by the authorities. This was proof for them that Martí was a rebel.

In 1869, he published his first political writings in the only edition of the newspaper El Diablo Cojuelo. That same year he published “Abdala”, a patriotic drama in verse form in the one-volume La Patria Libre. His famous sonnet “10 de octubre” was also written during that year, and was published later in his school newspaper.[

Despite this success, in March of that year, colonial authorities shut down the school, interrupting Martí’s studies. He came to resent Spanish rule of his homeland at a young age; likewise, he developed a hatred of slavery, which was still practiced in Cuba.

On 21 October 1869, aged 16, he was arrested and incarcerated in the national jail, following an accusation of treason from the Spanish government. More than four months later, Martí confessed to the charges and was condemned to six years in prison. His mother tried to free her son (who at 16 was still a minor) by writing letters to the government; his father went to a lawyer friend for legal support, but all efforts failed. Eventually Martí fell ill; his legs were severely lacerated by the chains that bound him. As a result, he was transferred to another part of Cuba known as Isla de Pinos instead of further imprisonment. Following that, they decided to repatriate him to Spain. In Spain, Martí, who was 18 at the time, was allowed to continue his studies with the hopes that studying in Spain would renew his loyalty to Spain.

Spain 1871–1874

In January 1871, Marti embarked on the steam ship Guipuzcoa, which took him from Havana to Cadiz. He settled in Madrid in a guesthouse in Desengano St. # 10. Arriving at the capital he contacted Carlos Sauvalle, who had been deported to Spain a year before Martí and whose house served as a center of reunions for Cubans in exile. On March 24, Cadiz’s newspaper La Soberania Nacional, published Martí’s article “Castillo” in which he recalled the sufferings of a friend he met in prison. This article would be reprinted in Sevilla’s La Cuestion Cubana and New York’s La Republica. At this time, Martí registered himself as a member of independent studies in the law faculty of Madrid’s Universidad Central.

In July and August 1871, he edited a pamphlet called El Presidio Politico en Cuba. In September, from the pages of El Jurado Federal, Marti and Sauvalle accused the newspaper La Prensa of having calumniated the Cuban residents in Madrid. During his stay in Madrid, Marti frequented the Ateneo and the National Library, the Café de los Artistas, and the British, Swiss and Iberian brewery. In November he became sick and had an operation, paid for by Sauville.

On the 27 of November 1871, eight medical students, who had been accused (without evidence) of the desecration of a Spanish grave, were executed in Havana.

In June 1872, Fermín Valdés was arrested because of the November 27 incident. His six years of jail were pardoned and he was exiled to Spain where he reunited with Martí. On November 27, 1872, the printed matter Dia 27 de Noviembre de 1871 (27 November 1871) written by Martí and signed by Fermín Valdés Domínguez, and Pedro J. de la Torre circulated Madrid. A group of Cubans held a funeral in the Caballero de Gracia church, the first anniversary of the medical students’ execution.

In 1873, Martí’s “A mis Hermanos Muertos el 27 de Noviembre” was published by Fermín Valdés. In February, for the first time, the Cuban flag appeared in Madrid, hanging from Martí’s balcony in Concepción Jerónima, where he lived for a few years. In the same month he edited a pamphlet called La Republica Española ante la Revolución Cubana. He sent examples of his work to Nestor Ponce de Leon, a member of the Junta Central Revolucionaria de Nueva York (Central revolutionary committee of New York), to whom he would express his will to collaborate on the fight for the independence of Cuba.

In May, he moved to Zaragoza, accompanied by Fermín Valdés to continue his studies in law at the Universidad Literaria. The newspaper La Cuestión Cubana of Sevilla, published numerous articles from Martí.

In June 1874, Marti graduated with a degree in Civil Rights and Canon Law. In August he signed up as an external student at the Facultad de Filosofia y Letras de Zaragoza, where he finished his degree by October. In November he returned to Madrid and then left to Paris. There he met Auguste Vacquerie, a poet, and Victor Hugo. In December 1874 he embarked from Le Havre for Mexico.

Mexico, Guatemala, Cuba, Spain 1875–1879

Since he was prohibited from coming to Cuba, Martí went to Mexico and Guatemala, where he taught and wrote, talking continually about Cuba’s independence. In 1875, Martí and his family lived on Moneda St. in Mexico City. A floor above him lived Manuel Mercado, the Secretary of the Distrito Federal government, who would become one of Martí’s best friends. On March 2, he published his first article for the Revista Universal, a newspaper concerning politics, literature and business, led by Vicente Villada.

On March 12, his translation of Mis Hijos by Victor Hugo started to appear serially in the aforementioned newspaper. Martí then became a part of the editorial staff, responsible for the section called “Boletín”. In these writings he expressed his opinion about the everyday events of Mexico.

In May 27, on the pages of the newspaper Revista Universal he responded to the anti-Cuban manifestations of the La Colonia Española newspaper. In December, La Sociedad Gorostiza, a group of writers and artists accepted Martí among its new members. He met his future wife, a Cuban woman named Carmen Zayas Bazán, during his frequent visits to her father’s house to meet with La Sociedad Gorostiza.

On January 1st 1876, in Oaxaca, contrary elements to Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada’s Mexican government, led by General Porfirio Díaz, proclaimed the Plan of Tuxtepec, instigating a bloody civil war. Martí and other Mexican intellectuals established the Sociedad Alarcón, integrated by dramatic authors, actors and critiques.

At this time, Martí began his collaboration with the El Socialista newspaper as executive of the Gran Círculo Obrero (Great Labour Circle) organization of the liberals and reformists that supported president Lerdo de Tejada. In March this newspaper proposed a series of candidates, including Martí, for delegates of the first congress of the country’s workers.

On June 4, La Sociedad Esperanza de Empleados (Hope for Employees Society) designated Martí as a delegate of the Congreso Obrero (Labour Congress). On December 7, in his article “Alea Jacta est” published in the El Federalista newspaper, Martí severely criticized the armed assault of the Porfiristas on the constitutional power. On December 16, in El Federalista his article “Extranjero”, in which he repeated his denunciation and bade farewell to the Mexican city, appeared. On December 29 he left Mexico City for Veracruz by train.

In 1877, using his second and last names, Julián Pérez, for a pseudonym, Martí embarked on the Ebroand went to Havana, hoping to arrange the moving of his family from Mexico City. He returned to Mexico, arriving at the Progreso Port, from which through Isla de Mujeres y Belice he travelled to Guatemala. In April he settled in Cuarta Avenida, south of the city of Guatemala. Ordered by the Guatemalan government, he wrote the drama Patria y Libertad (Drama Indio). He personally met the president of Guatemala, Justo Rufino Barrios. On April 22, the El Progreso newspaper published his article “Los Códigos Nuevos” (The New Codes).

On May 29 he was appointed head of the Department of French, English, Italian and German Literature, History and Philosophy, in the Faculty of Philosophy and Arts in the Universidad Nacional. On July 25 he participated as a lecturer in the opening evening of the Sociedad Literaria El Porvenir, in Teatro Colon, where he was appointed the vice-president of the society. He became known as “Doctor Torrente” (Doctor Torrent). Throughout July Martí would give free classes on composition at the girls’ academy Academia de Niñas de Centroamérica, run by Margarita Izaguirre. Among the students he met Maria García Granados, daughter of the Guatemalan ex-president Miguel García Granados, who fell in love with Martí. In November , he travelled to Mexico and on December 20 decided to marry Carmen Zayas Bazán.

In the beginning of January 1878 Martí returned to Guatemala and his classes resumed. In January his book Guatemala, edited in Mexico, was published. On May 10, María García Granados from the Academia de Niñas de Centroamérica died from lung disease. Her frustrated love for Martí gave her the name “La niña de Guatemala, la que se murió de amor” (the Guatemalan girl who died of love). Following her death, Martí returned to Cuba, where he finished signing the Pact of Zanjón which ended the Cuban Ten Years’ War.

During this same trip he married Carmen Zayas Bazán on Havana’s Tulipán Street. In October his request to practice as a lawyer in Cuba was turned down so he proceeded to immerse himself in conspiratorial works such as working for the Comité Revolucinario Cubano de Nueva York (Cuban Revolutionary Committee of New York). On November 2 his son José “Pepito” Francisco was born

In 1879 José Martí lived at 115 Industrial St. in Havana. He worked as Secretary of the Literature section in the Liceo de Guanabacoa school as well as working in the Nicolás Azcárate law office. He befriended Juan Gualberto, a mulatto, and collaborated with him on activities supporting independence. On March 18 Martí created the Club Central Revolucionario Cubano (Cuban Revolutionary Club) in Havana, and was designated its vice-president. He later dissolved this organization.

On April 21 he carried out a discourse against the autonomist politics, in the banquette held by Adolfo Márquez Sterling, director of discussion in the El Louvre cafe. On April 27, in a gathering in honor of the Cuban violinist Díaz Albertini in the Liceo de Guanabacoa, he demonstrated his inspiration for Cuban independence in the presence of the Spanish general-captain of the island, Ramón Blanco y Erenas.

The Comité Revolucionario Cubano de Nueva York appointed José María Aguilera the island’s delegate and José Martí the sub-delegate. On August 25 Martí started the call of the Guerra Chiquita (Little War) in Havana, conspiring an uprising with Martí Aguilera and Juan Gualberto Gómez, among others.

In September, Martí, possibly given away by a spy, was captured and deported to Spain, without allowing him to defend himself in the court. His wife and son were left behind in Cuba. He arrived in Madrid in October and he visited the Prado Museum and the Ateneo library, where he gave hours of lectures.

In December he secretly left Spain and arrived in Paris, and before the end of the year he embarked from Le Havre for New York.

As wildlife and habitat have disappeared from the region, Cuba’s importance as an ecological bastion has steadily risen. As one scientist put it, Cuba is the “biological superpower” of the Caribbean. The island has the largest tracts of untouched rain forest, unspoiled reefs and intact wetlands in the Caribbean islands. Cuba also is home to many unique, or endemic, species, including the solenodon, a chubby insectivore that looks rather like a giant shrew, and the bee hummingbird, the world’s smallest bird, weighing less than a penny.

Cuba: An Overview of its Geology, Hydrocarbon Systems and
Petroleum Industry (2002)
Petroleum production in Cuba dates from 1881 when light oil production was established
from Motembo Field in the central part of the island. Cuba currently produces an all-time
record of approximately 50,000 bo/d of predominantly heavy crude and 55 MMcf/d of
associated natural gas, mainly from a series of fields along a relatively small, 100km
stretch of the northern coastline. This limited area of oil and gas production has more to do
with ease of logistics and proximity to the main market (Havana) than to prospectivity. The
largest of the currently-producing fields is Varadero Field, with an estimated 2 billion
barrels of oil in-place. Most of the present-day production comes from fractured Upper
Jurassic and Lower Cretaceous carbonate reservoirs (originally part of the Florida-
Bahamas platform) in structural traps of the north Cuban deformed belt. Relatively minor
production has also been established from fractured serpentinites and other basement
rocks. The major hydrocarbon source rocks are probably Upper Jurassic and/or Lower
Cretaceous in age. With the application of modern drilling and completion techniques
since Cuba opened its E&P sector to foreign participation in the 1990s, recently-drilled
wells commonly have sustained production rates above 1,000 bo/d, with some wells
reaching 3,000 bo/d. Despite these successes, current production still only meets around
30% of Cuba’s domestic demand. There are, however, indications that production and
reserves could be significantly greater in the future. In particular, the Cuban sector of the
Gulf of Mexico holds great promise as a future petroleum province.

Two different and genetically unrelated volcanic arc sequences occur in the Sierra Maestra, one Cretaceous in age (pre-Maastrichtian) and restricted to a few outcrops on the southern coast, and the other Palaeogene in age, forming the main expression of the mountain range. These two sequences are overlain by middle to late Eocene siliciclastic, carbonatic and terrigenous rocks as well as by late Miocene to Quaternary deposits exposed on the southern flank of the mountain range. These rocks are britle deformed and contain extension gashes filled with calcite and karst material. The Palaeogene volcanic arc successions were intruded by calc-alkaline, low- to medium-K tonalites and trondhjemites during the final stages of subduction and subsequent collision of the Caribbean oceanic plate with the North American continental plate.

Physiography and Geology of Cuba

Outside of four distinctly mountainous areas, the topography is subdued with elevations less than 100 meters (Faribridge, 1975b). The major mountain range is the Sierra Maestra in the southeastern part of Cuba. Pico Turquino, at an elevation of 1974 meters, is the highest peak in Cuba. Many other peaks higher than 1000 meters are present in this mountain range. The eastern end of Cuba is the most rugged part with the Sierra Maestra in the southeast and the Baracos Highlands in the northeast. The central part of the island includes the Santa Clara Hills rising to roughly 200 meters and the Escambray Mountains rising to nearly 700 meters. The Havana and Matanzas Highlands are found in the north-central part of the island near Havana. This is a structurally complex area. A mountainous are known as the Sierra de los Organos is found in the northwest. It is underlain by limestone producing a tropical cone karst landscape with ridgetops and peaks reaching 300 to 700 meters. Cuba is geologically a diverse island. Many of the coastal plains and interior valleys are underlain by Quaternary to Recent sediments. As noted earlier, the Sierra de los Organos represents an are of predominantly limestone. The Havana and Matanzas Highlands and the Santa Clara Hills are underlain by folded and faulted sedimentary bedrock. Sandstones, conglomerates, shales, and dolomites of Cretaceous and Tertiary age are predominant. Various metamorphic rock types make up the Escambray Mountains. In the east, the Sierra Maestra are badly folded layers of sandstone, shale, breccia, and limestone of Paleocene age. Considerable amounts of serpentine and peridotite are exposed within folded sedimentary rock units in neighboring Baracoa Highlands.

About 70% of this big island is covered by limestone. The location, close to the equator, is the reason why this limestone is developed as Tower Karst. The high amount of solution results in karstified limestone mountains all over the island.

Of course there are other interesting geologic features on Cuba, for example the famous Iridium anomaly which is connected with a meteor that hit nearby. This happened at the border between the Creataceous and the Tertiary, right the time when the dinosaurs disappeared. The meteor theory is one of several, trying to explain this mass extinction.

Cuba, land of limestone and caves is one of the largest islands in the Antilles, 1250km long and between 191 and 31km wide. It is a country about the size of England where limestone forms 66% of the landscape, much of which is well developed mogote and cone karst. The longest caves are found in the western province of Pinar del Río, where the Organos and Rosario mountains are steep and afforested, separated by deep dolines and broad poljes. The finest limestone towers of the Sierra Organos, near Vinales contain many large caves, including the Gran Caverna de San Tomós with a length of 47km.

The Sierra Maestre, eastern Cuba, is a classic karst area with many deep gorges and dolines. The island’s deepest cave the Cueva Jibara -246m is found here.

The Matanzas karst to the east of Havana has some remarkable caves. The Cueva del Gato Jibaro is 11km long. Whilst the Cueva de Bellamar has some fabulous calcite crystals over 50cm long. The Cueva Santa Catalina is renown for its cave mushrooms which are over a metre in height. They are composed of fragments of calcite ‘ice’ which forms on the gours pools.

There is a spectacular deep cone karst in the Camaguey region, which because of the difficulties of exploration, is virtually unexplored. Caves are known in many other regions, both on the mainland and on the smaller islands, for instance, the small island of Cayo Caguanes has over 12km of surveyed caves.

Just when we thought things could not get any worse another hurricane is heading towards Cuba. This time is called PALOMA and although is not as bad as previous GUSTAV and IKE last September the Cuban goverment is not taking any chances and is evacuating the southern- central part of the Island.

Tracking northeast to strike Cuba’s south-central coast late Saturday, and with Havana still reeling from a devastating storm season, Paloma would be the fifth to crash into the island this year.

The island began mobilizing its defenses in readiness for the tempest — preparing total evacuations of low-lying regions and coastal cities on the southern coast, prepping medical teams and equipping shelters for residents and up to 3,000 foreign tourists.

Cuba declared a hurricane warning for its central and eastern provinces Friday, covering Sancti Spiritus, Ciego de Avila, Camaguey, Las Tunas, Holguin, Granma, Santiago de Cuba and Guantanamo, civil defense officials said.

In Holguin province, the area most devastated by Hurricane Ike in September, head of the region’s Civil Defense Council Miguel Diaz-Canel ordered emergency measures to protect life and property.

Gladys Sanchez, a resident of Minas, north of the central city of Camaguey told AFP by telephone that “no one had expected another hurricane.”

“There are people here who are still homeless,” she said, adding that local residents had just begun to recover from the previous storms.

“It has been raining here since morning — everything is dark,” she said.

The 2008 hurricane season, including devastating Hurricanes Gustav and Ike, has killed hundreds across the Caribbean and Central America and wrought billions of dollars in damage across the region.

Gustav and Ike, which struck Cuba on August 30 and September 9, caused an estimated 9.3 billion dollars in damage, almost double the original estimates, according to official reports.

In the Caribbean’s most populous island nation, with more than 11 million people, the storms have damaged some tourism infrastructure and destroyed about 80 percent of crops.