The once scrubby wasteland between Hotel Ciego de Ávila and the city center, on the northwestern edge of town, is now a vast park featuring an artificial lake, the Embalse La Turbina, with boating available, children's playgrounds and good eateries. With its offbeat attractions and amiable understatedness, it's one of Cuba's most interesting urban regeneration projects.
It's also testimony to the wonders achievable with scrap: old steam trains have been dusted off in homage to Ciego's transport history; there are impressive artes plásticos (art pieces) including an elephant statue fashioned from old car parts; and, among the eating possibilities, an old Aerocaribbean aircraft converted into a restaurant.
The lake fills a hole left by an old quarry that used to provide stone for the Trocha defensive wall in the 1860s and the Carretera Central in the 1920s.
