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In his travels through the archipelago of the Queen’s Gardens, the Spanish chronicler Antonio Perpiñá: in the middle of the spell to see from these places virtually untouched, elegant and spectacular of the Queen of the Antilles, published over one hundred years ago (1889): “country of the palms, the breeze and perfumes [...]. the foliage of its forests, the beauty of its birds, the picturesque mountains, the amazing thing about their caves, and the fun of its estuaries and its oasis planted in islands forming seas delightful, beautiful and charming. ”

The same charms remain today the cays of the Twelve Leagues also explored in 1508 by Sebastian de Ocampo, pilot Galician and servant of the Queen Dona Isabelita. From his circumnavigation of the island Juana or Cubanacán then, could report to the Governor Nicolas de Ovando, the Spanish, “that Cuba is an island, not a continent, as Columbus believed. ”

The keys of the twelve leagues is located 50 kilometers from Playa Bonita, Santa Cruz del Sur, is characterized by the difficult navigation. It covers a third of all the Jardines de la Reina and can be considered as one of the most beautiful areas of 70 000 square kilometers of the submerged platform in Cuba.

The Labyrinth of the twelve leagues extends across 135 miles of beautiful underwater sites for contemplation, with large colonies of sponges and coral gardens. Tens of kilometers long at its southern coastline, beaches of high quality by the long stretch of fine sand, between five and twenty miles of excellent water landscapes funds up to the labyrinth of the twelve leagues. At the edge of the barrier are seen black coral and various species of marine fauna, which are natural relics carefully preserved ecosystem.

Nature is amazing through the waters covering the continental shelf of this beautiful area. A large area consisting of 661 cays and islands Cayuelos gives us this beautiful crystal waters of almost perfect in some of its keys can be found fresh water, as a result of filtration of rainfall in the hollows of the rocks of some keys mainly in the Loggerhead, and mangroves that serve as a filter to tide water and rain.

Antonio Perpiñá acknowledged: “That many cays and islands are truly amenísimos orchards, planted oasis in the vast expanse of these waters populated by rich diversity of fish, and enormous rich careyes cetaceans. (They are there) [...] amphibians Manatee, mermaids or nymphs of the sea, described by poets, fish, mammals, which flaunted their bodies rotted by those banks, they catch the cool grass pasture with cattle Pacific security.

“The peace and splendor reigns in those lonely islands, islands inhabited by countless birds, birds with their harmonious singing liven up the dense forests and the verdant valleys carpeted. ”

The Spanish chronicler could also see the vast variety of corals and birds than he cataloged silver sea of many islands that “happy oasis which formed one hundred gardens, the Jardines de la Reina archipelago …”

Dissimilar seabird found that “give life and animation to the wilderness. I remember many great boobies and pelicans monstrous wings and beaks a revolution there were air and noisily rushing sea to prey upon those raised fish. ”

Among these birds, which currently abound in the twelve leagues, similarly observed flocks of coconuts (Ibis Alba), Plover and Curlew (Numenius longirostris), Flamenco (Phenicópterus ruber. Lin.) Gracilotes or gray herons (Ardea caerulea) , Hummingbirds, (Indian name is known to Guam and ZUMZUM or rezumbador.

“Those were the lonely forest inRome country of a thousand seagulls, which eu revoleteando around him, the sailor gave the most poetic landscape and embelesante. ”

The charms of the cays, mangroves, seagrass beds and coral reefs, may turn to the twelve leagues and all the cays of the Jardines de la Reina, with an area of 2170 square kilometers, a true natural wonder of the world, lavished, also by high levels of bio-diversity and conservation, with over 900 fish and 66 species of plants. These cays are of relative geological youth, dating from the Pleistocene-Holocene.

Complete fauna endemic mammal capromis pilorides Cuban, known as conga guinea pig, (the largest rodent) species that moves from one to another fell, inexplicably, over 150 km covering Gardens Queen named by Christopher Columbus. Sharks abound there: head hard (Carcharinus falciformis), playful (Carcharinus perezi) and the whale shark (Rhincodon typus), there are also certain snapper (Lutjanus cyanopterus), bonefish (Albula vulpes), shad (Megalpos atlanticus) halibut (Trachinotus falcatus), Arigua (Mycteroperca poisonous), black groupers (Mycteroperca bonaci) and joking (Epinephelus itajara).

One of the most important marine settings throughout the Caribbean. Declared a Natural Park since 1997 by Cuban authorities.

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