Eight Kilometres With Nothing On Them

The last part of the coast is the emptiest. At the southwest corner of the country there is a bay called Bahía de las Águilas. It runs for about eight kilometres, and there is nothing built on it. No hotel, no bar, no real road. You come by boat. The water is so clear that from above the boats look as if they are hanging in the air.

It stays empty because it is inside Jaragua National Park. The park was made in nineteen eighty three and it is the largest protected area in the Caribbean. Most of it is sea, not land.

In spring and early summer, leatherback turtles come up this beach in the dark to lay their eggs. They are the largest turtles in the world. In the morning all that is left is two wide tracks going up the sand and two coming back down.

Polly turns for home in the late afternoon. She climbs back over the mountains, over coffee farms and rows of plantains, into cooler air. Below her the fishing boats are coming in. In one foot she still holds a small pale blue stone.