This was Day 3 in Havana and as usual we were up at 7 a.m. and had the meagre breakfast on the upper terrace at Hotel Plaza. (At least that was MY opinion).
We boarded the bus with our guia Angel and headed for Plaza Revolucion. Much like Red Square in Moscow, this is where the official May Day Parade is held. It is a pretty awesome plaza as one looks around and sees the various heroes of the Revolution – ‘Che’ Guevara, Jose Marti, and Camilio Cienfuegos. Where is Fidel? (There are none or very few images of Fidel anywhere to be seen in Havana outside of the Museo de Revolucion). There are billboards showing Raul though….
Unfortunately this day the elevator was not functioning! On the buildings behind us were the wire sculptures of Che and Cienfuegos –
Camilo Cienfuegos (bottom), along with Che (top photo) and Fidel were the leading figures in the Revolution. Che was killed in Bolivia after the Revolution.
During his stay in Mexico, Camilo met Fidel Castro, who was organizing a revolutionary expedition that would return to Cuba to fight Batista. Thereafter Cienfuegos was one of the 82 revolutionaries who set sail aboard the boat Granma in November 1956. Allegedly, he was the last one to board the boat and was only allowed to join because of his thinness.
On October 28, 1959, Cienfuegos’s Cessna 310 (‘FAR-53’) disappeared over the ocean during a night flight from Camagüey to Havana. An immediate search was called which lasted several days, but no plane could be found.
By November the search was called off and Cienfuegos was presumed lost. He quickly became a new hero for the Cuban revolution.
Leaving Plaza Revolucion, we boarded our bus for a drive along Havana’s famous malecón…stopping for more information from our guia, Angel. These three babes followed us wherever we went…LOL
They were being followed by a not so discreet security guard wearing sunglasses –
The plaques on the wall behind were interesting – they contained the name of some very famous Americans, like Thomas Alva Edison, Ernest Hemingway, Benjamin Spock, Helen Keller, Frank Lloyd Wright, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow etc. Curious?
With information overload starting to kick in, we headed for a rum store…..free samples!!! The rest of our day will be detailed in the next post…. I’m off to make myself a mojito…..
Cuban Odyssey 