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Drove
down from "El Morro", past the city's port to the city's main
cemetery to view Fidel's grave.
Had
Arrived in Cuba just after Fidel Castro had been laid to rest..... symbolically
returning to the region where he launched his revolution. The funeral cortege
had transited the length of the island, about 500 miles, retracing the route to
Havana once taken to topple Batista.....attended by millions along the way.
At
the cemetery, a mausoleum to Jose Marti is... just
behind Fidel's grave. Returning to the city center you pass Revolutionary
Square where, like in Havana, nearby buildings brandish large metal sculptures
evoking Che Guevara and Camilo Cienfuegos, the other two of the Revolutionary
"trinity" of commanders.
Fronting
these, across the square, a very large - and surprisingly modern/abstract - monument to Antonio Maceo one of the
independence wars heroes ..as he was in his original country the Dom Rep.
(Historical
note: Hispaniola twice exported its civil tumult to Cuba: first, expelled French
sugar plantation owners from Haiti, then successful rebel generals from the Dom
Rep who continued their animosity against Spain in neighboring Cuba.)
Oriente
Province, historically much bigger than what it is now, was where many of the
independence wars/Cuban revolution leaders came from or originated their rebellions:
Cespedes, Gomez, Maceo, Garcia, Fidel....a province big enough to support a
rebellion and yet too far away for Havana-based Spaniards to successfully
suppress the rebels/revolutionaries.
December 2016
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