Chasing Che
Trip Start
Aug 23, 1996
1
431
449
Trip End
Ongoing
Santa Clara,
Cuba
Thursday, June 4, 2009
But First
To be honest, I have read about him and I personally do not like the man for what he did during the campaign to his own men. I believe Cienfuegos to be a better man, in fact, even Fidel rated him higher. But this is my opinion and I am going in with my eyes wide open to discover a different meaning.
The Drive
We had a 70ish K drive from Cienfuegos and we were going through both factories and fields. All around, there were more and more political signs, plus Che was everywhere with loads of different sayings. It was quite interesting.
Santa Clara
As we arrived on the outskirts, the memorial loomed large. You could not miss it. A huge statue of Ernesto 'Che' Guevara was on top of a concrete monolith. We parked up and went and explored this monument.
It had been erected in 1987 to mark 20 years since he had died and in 1997 his body was buried inside. Around the outside were some sayings in Spanish, and as this is the main Che site, it was covered with tourists.
Underneath was an eternal flame, lit by Fidel, and Che's grave was amongst 16 others. In the next room was a small museum on his revolutionary life. It showed the battles including the Santa Clara win, onwards to the Congo, and finally where he met his end, Bolivia. It was interesting, but there was more to see.
Once we left, we attempted to drive into town. The centre is a criss-cross of one way streets. We drove around in circles, unable to find a parking spot. Eventually we did, so we attempted to walk around.
In the centre was a square, but there wasn't much to see. We ended up at the cigar factory as our book stated that this one was better than the one in Havana. We asked for a tour but was told that there were no private tours, we needed to book through a tour company. On a desk in front of us was a sign, stating the times and the cost of the tours, and when we pointed this out, we were told that the sign was wrong, there were no private tours, end of story !!! And as my Spanish is shit, it was pointless arguing
So we set off, back in the car until we arrived at the boxcar museum. This was the place of the decisive victory of Che. There were various train carriages around with photos of Che and weapons that had been used, and there was also a bulldozer that had ripped up the tracks, and of course a memorial stone stating the information from that day.
And with that, our time had ended in Santa Clara, so we moved on back to Cienfuegos
And Finally
Had my eyes finally opened. No. Was he a smart man? Well, saying that there needed more Vietnams in the world is not the smartest comment !!! So all I can do is continue on with my quest to find out why the world considers him a hero, until then, I will not rest.
