With its dazzling white sands that make it unique in the country, for being the best preserved of its kind, the Los Indios nature reserve, northwest of the Isle of Youth, is a protected area of incredible beauty and notable zoological and botanical values.Its magnificent properties are characterized by a combination of terrestrial and marine areas managed for conservation purposes backed by science that does not exclude the ultimate goal of responsible and intense enjoyment .
They extend their size for about 5,581 hectares and, like any ecosystem, natural life bustles with vital processes that reveal a healthy and natural life, generally in balance, only altered or perhaps encouraged by sporadic weather phenomena.
Scientists have included it among the five ecosystems with the greatest endemism of Cuba, and although the interesting fact is not very disclosed, that is saying a lot in an archipelago, where there are emporiums very notable in the subject such as the Sierra Maestra and the National Park Alexander of Humboldt.
Sitting stately on white silica sand soils, very uncommon in the country, great efforts have been made for the preservation of this relic that requires very specialized attention. A typical detail of its beautiful landscape and fabric of life are the pine forests of the female type and the pot-bellied palms grown in the habitat, along with more than 20 other species of regional endemic plants. The great variety of invertebrate components of its fauna also includes splendid birds such as the wading Cuban crane and the green parrot.An interesting fact for the reader is to add that, although a reservation ecological does not always contain complete ecosystems, such as National Parks, it is generally smaller than these. They are also very rich enclaves, cared for with the same zeal.
In the case of Los Indios Ecological Reserve, it sits on an islet -Isle of Youth- full of fascinating history and legends, linked above all to the old days of the 16th to 18th centuries in which the seas of the Caribbean were plagued by corsairs and pirates.
About its beaches there are myths about treasure burials, almost never found and still sought after, which according to advice they must have belonged to famous English, French, or Dutch filibusters. It is also an area with a high probability of finding archaeological remains or establishment of the first inhabitants of Cuba, the Tainos of Arawak origin who lived in very primitive communities.