We returned to Cuba for one more week before our scheduled flight to China. Initially our plan was to explore the east of Cuba with its second largest city Santiago and surroundings, but we got too lazy to conquer the long distance of 15 hours by bus and didn’t trust the domestic airline with its planes from the 70s.
Instead we opted for the historic maze-like Camaguey with a stop half way at the “city of Che” Santa Clara, which we missed out on our first visit.
Santa Clara is a must see for every fan of Che Guevara, with its large monument and dedicated museum, it’s statues and a cool memorial of his famous derailment of an army train.
The fame of Che Guevara in Santa Clara relates to the Battle of Santa Clara, the last and decisive battle of the Cuban Revolution after which dictator Batista fled the country, led under the command of Che. In a crucial moment, Che managed to derail an armored train containing lots of soldiers and supplies for the government troops, by using a local bulldozer. The event is remembered with a memorial of the bulldozer and the scene of the derailed train.
When mentioning Che to the grandmother at our Casa (a rather grim looking lady) she suddenly got sparkling eyes and excitingly started to tell us all about her handsome hero. Being of similar age as Che, she met him on his victory tour through Santa Clara and shot a few cool photos of him. We got a long history lesson via her photo and memorabilia album, including a hand written letter of Che to her cousin, while the love for “her” Che was still radiating all over her.
While we enjoyed our stay in Santa Clara a lot, we were rather disappointed by Camaguey. It has a small unusual Mexican inspired square, and getting lost in its confusing street layout can be an interesting experience, but you might as well give the city a miss.
Or maybe it was just that after one month in Cuba it offered too little new to us…
