In the footsteps of Che...

Another morning in Cuba. It started like many other, with a lovely cup of Cuban Coffee in the sunshine. This time, I was sitting in the little garden among cacti and read a little bit in the Lonely Planet guide (English version) that the owner of the casa particular gave me. I tried to figure out what I should not be missing in this town of Santa Clara. To be honest, I should probably have bought this book myself before coming here. There is plenty of good information in there.

It was time to get moving now, so I took the book and went for a walk to check out all the sites that were mentioned in the book.

In Santa Clara, everything of interest is in some way related to Che Guevara. The reason for this is, that Che and some of his guerillas attacked and toppled a train with military supplies, sent by the Batista government in late 1958. The actual train and the location are now a site to "celebrate" this attack.

This should also be my first stop on my walk.
It is just a couple of minutes walk to the east from the town centre and is well worth visiting. It is a nicely done outdoor museum, where the different rail cars are toppled all over the place (right next to the actual train track where it happened), but each of them can be entered. Inside each of the cars there are artifacts, like guns or photos and things like this.

At the time I was there, a film crew was doing a documentary with some army General walking around the place and giving an interview. The camera team went on top of some of the cars to get a better shot. I also wanted to go on top (which is usually not part of the tour I am sure), so the camera man held my camera and helped my up on the car.

After this adventure, the next Che Stop was another few minutes up the road: the statue of Che y Nino (Che and the boy).

This is a statue in front of the "Officina de la Provincia" is Che holding a child on his arm and is suppose to show the next generation of rebels. There are many small details incorporated into the statue, symbolizing events in Che's life, like 38 men who died during some attack an Bolivia (where Che also died) integrated into his belt buckle, and some faces and tiny little figures on his arm.
Now it was time to walk over to the Loma de Capiro, which is a hill on the outskirts of Santa Clara, which was used by, you guessed it, Che Guevara as a hideout and command centre. This place, gives a great view of the area (which is probably why it was used as a command centre) and now, has a monument on top of it. I was a nice walk, but considering the heat it was not really worth the trip. But, who is complaining, there was not much else to do in Santa Clara. Aside from the main attraction: Che's Mausoleum!

This was on the complete opposite site of the town, so I had to walk all the way across to it. It was really getting hot now but I kept going until I got to there.
It was not very busy, like all the other places. 3 or 4 other tourists walking around the very large areal. The Mausoleum as interesting, with a little museum and an eternal flame and of course a large statue of Che and a huge Cuban flag.

Now I had done everything there is to do in Santa Clara, so I went back to my Casa, picked up some food along the way and still had two hours to kill before I had to go back to the bus station.
I read my book and had another coffee in the lovely garden and soon the same Taxi driver that brought me here showed up again and drove me back to the bus station.
I had already reserved my ticket yesterday when I arrived, so I just needed to pick it up and wait. In the departure hall I met a couple from Belgium, so the time passed quickly.
Most of the three hours of the bus ride we drove through a very strong thunderstorm and arrived around 9pm at Varadero.

I walked to my new Casa and when I arrived, the owner, a very old man, was already waiting for me outside his house on the street.

He was struggling to walk up the stairs back to his apartment with his crutches again. I felt quite bad, for making him come out of his house to wait for me on the street.
He was very nice, but his apartment was very basic. So was the dinner this night. He still had some leftover rice and offered it to me. I couldn't refuse that nice gesture, although I would have loved some nice meal in a restaurant, to be honest. However, they were probably closing by now and this way I saved some money and made the man happy.

But this was enough personal interaction for an evening and I was glad, to settle into my room and relax a little. I watched a documentary of Chile on my laptop and hten read a little more in my book "Mission", which really turned out to be quite thrilling and I was racing through the pages. 400 in just 4 days, which is extremely quick for me, usually needing 4 months for a book.