Grand Cayman hiking

Date: February 27, 2020

We rented a car for a couple of days. We drove out to the Mastic trail which almost crosses Grand Cayman from north to south. It is an old trail initially built more than 100 years ago. It became disused when a road crossing the island was built, but now it serves as a hiking trail managed by the National Trust.

There was lots of animals near the trail. Here is a Cayman Racer snake which is not poisonous:

Many animals species on the Cayman Islands only live here since the islands are quite isolated. Here is a Cayman blue-throated anole:

They are quite common. Here is another one:

After hiking for while, we got to some original forest. The landscape is affected by the bedrock being limestone. In one area, there were many crack in the ground:

Here is a calabash fruit:

After the hike, we drove around the island. Here is a blow hole on the south shore:

At the end of the afternoon, we went to the botanical gardens. Here is a silver thatch which is the national tree of Cayman Islands:

It used to be a very important plant for these islands since it was used to produce rope. A lot of it was exported to Cuba and Jamaica. In 1944, the Jamaican fishing fleet was destroyed by a hurricane, so in Cayman, they were busy making rope for new fishing vessels there. They exported around 3 million meters of rope in 1945. The rope was mostly made by women and children since the men were busy fishing.

A form of agave only found on the Cayman Islands:

This blue iguana is also only found here:

This species is threatened and the botanical gardens have a program for breeding them to try to re-establish it in the wild. You can see some small beads at the back of the head if this iguana. They probably serve to identify it.

A Caribbean dove:

A tiny pineapple:

Cashew nuts:

The nut is at the end of a small red and green section. This section will become a fairly large fruit before the cashew nut is ripe.

Félicie in front of a large palm: