Guarma

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“	We are on the island of Guarma. Javier asked a local. It's an old sugar plantation island. Second island east of Cuba.	„
	—Dutch van der Linde to Arthur Morgan

Guarma is a tropical island off of Cuba in Red Dead Redemption 2.

It is the primary location in which most of the missions in the fifth chapter takes place. Afterwards, the island cannot be visited indefinitely after the mission, "Paradise Mercifully Departed", unless through an exploit or glitch.

Geography

Guarma is an island east of Cuba. The explorable regions of the territory are situated within a bay called Bahía de la Paz. Most of the area are beaches and shoreline where it slowly elevates up to the cliffs of Cinco Torres and Aguasdulces itself. A single river, Arroyo de la Vibora, flows into the bay where it is home to exotic bird species and other wild animals exclusive to the island.

Around Aguasdulces, sugar fields primarily encompass the landscape. Within its vicinity is La Capilla, a church. Opposite from the plantation is Cinco Torres, an old Spanish fort.

Description

Guarma is primarily a sugar plantation run by Colonel Fussar. It is a jungle island, as such, this is the only place where booby, parrot and certain crab species exist and live. It is administered by Cuba and uses mostly indentured servants and political prisoners to work on the plantations, both of which are slaves in all but name. Sometime before the year 1899, Fussar became the dictator of the island, and a Haitian named Hercule Fontaine started a revolution against him.

Events of Red Dead Redemption 2

After the failed bank heist in Saint Denis, Dutch, Arthur, Javier, Bill, and Micah sneak on-board a ship on the docks of Saint Denis in an attempt to escape the law. During their journey, a large storm hits, causing the ship to sink and Arthur to go overboard.

Arthur washes up on the shore of Guarma and searches for civilization. He soon finds the other four at a campfire but, immediately after, the local military led by Levi Simon arrest them and transport them in shackles to jail. Along the way to the jail, the rebels bombard the soldiers with bullets and, in the confusion, Arthur collects keys from a dead soldier's corpse and uses it to unlock the shackles. After killing off the guards leading them, Hercule Fontaine, the revolutionary leader tells the gang to follow him. As they escape, Javier is shot in the leg and wounded by reinforcements, and they are forced to leave without him. Hercule leads the remaining gang to La Capilla, which is stocked with rifles. Reinforcements soon arrive, but the gang and Hercule ultimately manage to repel them. Afterwards, the group proceeds to a small rebel outpost in the jungle.

After arriving at the outpost, the gang rests for a short time, before setting out to find a way off the island. Per Hercule Fontaine's request, Arthur is sent to investigate the workers' situation. While Arthur makes his way to them, he is knocked out by a tranquilser dart in the jungle and held captive by the military. Upon waking, Arthur is met with several punches from Angel, who demands to know who Arthur is and what he is doing. After Arthur is unresponsive, Angel begins beating two other men for any information. As he does, Arthur rocks on his chair until he falls over, causing his restraints to be undone. Angel realises at the last second and lunges at Arthur with a knife, but Arthur disarms him and savagely beats him into unconsciousness. Arthur then unties the other two men. One is Leon Fuentes, who asks Arthur to help him, while telling the other, Baptiste, to stay behind and rest due to his injuries. Arthur and Leon sneak past several guards until they reach a site where a number of workers who had been hanged. Several guards then ambush them, which Arthur manages to fight off. Afterwards, Leon helps a few of the remaining workers to escape with him, and pays Arthur for his troubles.

Another thing that the gang must do before leaving the island, is to rescue Javier. Arthur and Dutch go to a cave where an old lady named Gloria is. Dutch pays her a gold bar to lead them through the cave, up to a ladder that would bring them up to Aguasdulces. She then demands more money, but Dutch refuses. In response, Gloria pulls a knife on him, only for Dutch to grab her by the throat and strangle her to death, prompting dismay from Arthur. The two of them then enter Aguasdulces, where they see Colonel Fussar, Levi Simon and a group of soldiers, who are seen taunting and beating Javier for information about the gang, while he is pulled along by a donkey. Arthur and Dutch quickly begin looking for ways to find a distraction, which they find in the sugar refinery. After silently killing a few guards, Dutch slashes the bags of sugar, spilling it all over the floor, while Arthur closes the shutters. The distraction works and, shortly afterwards, the warehouse blows up and the guards go to investigate, allowing Arthur and Dutch to get to Javier. After Dutch picks him up, they flee the settlement, until they reach the river of Arroyo de la Vibora. At the river, Arthur tells Dutch to take Javier away while he fights off the waves of soldiers who are in pursuit. After doing so, Arthur returns to the rest of the gang.

After doing these two things, the gang goes to Cinco Torres. Here, they see a Cuban warship approaching, and swarms of enemies attacking. The gang and Hercule shoot at the soldiers from above, before going down to the beach and finishing them off. They then rush back to the top and man the cannon as the warship approaches. After many shots, the warship sinks, and they begin planning on making an escape off the island.

As the five prepare to leave, Micah reports that Colonel Fussar has set up gun batteries that will prevent them from leaving the island. Realizing that they must be silenced, Arthur, Ditch and Micah assault the batteries and blow up the cannons with dynamite. They then set out to find the ship captain, who is reportedly in the workers' cabin. Arthur breaks in to find the captain, but gets tackled by Levi Simon and held at gunpoint. Dutch then comes in, and puts Simon at gunpoint before Fussar aims his own gun at Dutch, who, in turn, points another gun at Fussar. The standoff ends when Arthur kicks the ship captain his rifle, who kills Simon by shooting him in the chest. Fussar flees the cabin during the chaos, resulting in Arthur and Dutch (along with Hercule Fontaine) pursuing him. They eventually find Fussar in a tower manning a machine gun. In order to bring him down, Hercule and Dutch draw Fussar's fire while Arthur sneaks towards a nearby cannon. Arthur shoots Fussar's tower, destroying it and killing Fussar in the process. With all attempts to stop them from leaving having been thwarted, the five gang members finally depart from Guarma.

Locations

• Aguasdulces
• Arroyo de la Vibora
• Bahía de la Paz
• Cinco Torres
• El Nido (Welcome to the New World mission weapons location, name confirmed in the index on the map)
• La Capilla
• Manicato (the port)

Native Wildlife

• Boar
• Booby*
  • Red Footed Booby
• Chicken
• Crab*
  • Cuban Land Crab
• Goat
  • Alpine Goat
• Gull
  • Laughing Gull
  • Ring-billed Gull
• Heron
  • Great Blue Heron
  • Tricolored Heron
• Iguana*
  • Green Iguana
• Parrot*
  • Blue-and-yellow Macaw
  • Great Green Macaw
  • Scarlet Macaw
• Pelican
  • American White Pelican
  • Brown Pelican
• Pig
  • Berkshire Pig
  • Big China Pig
  • Old Spot Pig
• Rooster
• Snake*
  • Fer-de-Lance
  • Red Boa
  • Rainbow Boa
  • Sunglow Boa
• Turtle**
  • Green Sea Turtle

* - denotes as exclusive to the island. However, they are not required for 100% completion and also for trophies/achievements Skin Deep and Zoologist. However, they can be filled in the compendium.

** - denotes as exclusive to the island. The animal can be killed and skinned but data will not be filled in the compendium. However, Arthur/John will sketch the turtle in the journal.

Trivia

• One of the newspapers acquired early on in the game mentions how America has recently celebrated victory over the Spanish in the Spanish-American War. Interestingly enough, the Battle of San Juan Hill has occurred as well, but instead of taking place in Cuba (as it happened in real life), the battle occurred in Guarma in the game's universe.
• Contrary to popular opinion, Guarma is not a part of Cuba. Its political situation is unclear, as it is in the midst of a revolution and violent uprisings against plantation owners. It is an island located to the east of Cuba, between Cuba and Haiti/The Bahamas.
• After the mission Paradise Mercifully Departed, you won't have the chance to revisit Guarma again. Fortunately, there are some glitches that'll let you revisit the Island.

Gallery

The entirety of Guarma.

A panoramic view of Guarma.

The eastern coast of Guarma.

The tiger shark.