April 21, 2016

We left Habana for a 5 hour drive to Santa Clara, Cuba.  We traveled about 2-3 hours on a “reasonably” constructed road the Russians had built.  In 1990 when the Russians pulled out of Cuba due to the fall of the Soviet Empire, the road construction stopped and no additional road was built. The road just ended.  It was odd.  We turned onto some regular streets to continue our journey to Santa Clara.  So needless to say the travel comfort lessened dramatically when we left the Russian highway; and that’s a big step down.   Here’s a thought that came to mind.  In the past 26 years Cuba has not been able to finish the road that is the only road between the west and east coasts of Cuba. 

“In Giron they fought for Socialism”      

Waiting for a ride

Once we got to Santa Clara we stopped at the Provincial Art Gallery.  Santa Clara is a pretty town with lots of artists.  A  dozen young children performed a skit for us in funny clown attire.  They were very good and so cute.  Everything was “mimed” as they did not say a word during their presentation.  Then members of the Piquete Melodias Antilanas band played 19^th century Cuban music on 200 year old instruments.  Six elderly Cubans taught us the “courting dance.”  We know how to use a fan to win a lover!  It was fun. 

Our last stop before getting to our hotel in Santa Clara was a stop at the Che Guevara memorial/mausoleum.  Cubans worship Che.  The memorial and museum were huge.  There was a special room lit by candles with very cold air conditioning, which most Cubans do not have.  This room held Che’s remains and those of other fighters that were sent from Bolivia back to Cuba.  There were large pictures of Fidel and Hugo Chavez.  There was another larger room with other artifacts like clothes, guns, letters and pictures.  Did you know that Che was a doctor?  Che Guevara was not a nice person.  After the 1959 revolution Fidel and Che had a friendly parting of the ways.  There’s only room for one leader.  Fidel suggested Che go to Bolivia and help with a revolution there and after that Che went to Angola to participate in their revolution.   I guess one person’s hero is another person’s villain. 

Che Guevara

“Ever Onward Toward Victory”

Everywhere you went around the monument everything was “bigger than life” and always above you.

Our hotel in Santa Clara was actually a bungalow in a very tropical area, bugs and all.  The hotel was a bit rustic but rather fun.  Our bungalow had a thatched roof with lots of bugs.  It rained as it is very tropical in Santa Clara.  We had a reasonably good buffet dinner, though I had spaghetti with red sauce and cucumbers being tired of rice, beans, pork and chicken, and the mojitos were good too!



See you tomorrow!  bc and gc