Hasta siempre Commandante

1) The Ernesto 'Che' Guevara monument near the Plaza de Revolución
2) Parque Leoncio Vidal
3) Monumento a la Toma del Tren Blindado

Quick Tips:

Best Way To Get Around:

A neatly laid out complex on the edge of town (2km from Plaza de la Revolución) featuring Cuban Amerindian-style accommodation huts with good facilities (bar, restaurant, swimming pool, pool table).

This morning, the sun bursted while we were having breakfast and we decided to walk to the centre of vibrant SANTA CLARA. Santa Clara is the place to be for Che worshippers as the scene of his most famous victory during the revolutionary conflict. It took about fifteen minutes to walk from our hotel, Los Caneyes, to the Plaza de Revolución and then we stood before the famous monument of Cuba's adopted son and hero, Ernesto 'Che' Guevara. In 1967, a Bolivian soldier - certain people maintain it was an United States Army Special Forces seargeant - stepped into an unused schoolroom in a dusty hamlet in the Andean foothills of southeastern Bolivia and shot Che Guevara. Thus, he gave the coup de grace to Fidel Castro's campaign in the 1960s to spread revolution throughout the hemisphere and helped forge the image of Guevara that lives today - not a totally inaccurate one - of an itinerant knight, a people's champion, a crusader for justice. Nowadays almost everybody will be familiar with that worldfamous picture of Che Guevara, taken by Alberto 'Korda' Gutierrez.

The enormous statue of El Che has been raised in 1987, on the twentieth anniversary of the rebel's death and since October 1997, it has become a mausoleum in which his mortal remains are kept. One of the catchphrases of the revolution, 'Hasta la Victoria Siempre' (Ever onwards to victory), is inscribed on the concrete pedestal. Beneath that stands the farewell letter Che wrote to say goodbye to Fidel Castro. Allow me to quote the final sentences: '... I would like to say much to you and to our people, but I feel it is not necessary. Words cannot express what I want them to, and I don't think it's worth while to banter phrases. Onward to victory always ¡ Patria o Muerte ! I embrace you with all my revolutionary fervor.' We didn't get the upportunaty to enter the Museo Memorial al Che because the military forces were making preparations for the memorial ceremony.

As we walked on to Parque Leoncio Vidal it becomes clear that Santa Clara is an energetic city. A large number of bicy-taxis and horse-drawn carriages as well as motor-drawn carriages operate on the Rafael Tristá. During the break of the secondary school, which is located next to the pedestrianized town square, Parque Vidal hums with chatter of children. The enjoyable atmosphere is due to the fact that it's permanently full with people and kids racing around the promenade, whilst their elders stick to the benches underneath the towering palms. I visited the opulently furnished Museo de Artes Decoratives in the corner of the square, one of the older buildings around. In La Marquesina (Parque Vidal esq. Máximo Gómez), a bar in the corner of Teatro La Caridad, we met two deaf-and-dumb men. We drank a mojito and had a conversation expressing ourselves through sign language or should I say gestures. They were funny and could make everything very clear and understandable. Give these guys a television show and they will make a lot of people laugh. Meanwhile, an old, bespectacled man with a large cigar came in and asked us if we would like to pay for his coffee. In Cuba it often happened that someone asked us for a pen, a t-shirt or something to drink. When we finished our drinks we walked through Santa Clara's main shopping street, Indepencia, which leads to the Monumento a la Toma del Tren Blindado, the city's most significant and renowned event. This open-air museum shows some derailed carriages from the attack on an armoured train in 1958. This clash, led by Che Guevara, was to be one of the last military encounters of the revolutionary war. The tale of the against-the-odds victory is more spectacular than this legendary place. Do not expect to be occupied more than ten minutes. On our way back to the hotel we stopped in a basement cafeteria - some kind of local McDonald's - to order some sandwiches. We also bought two fried chickens and drinks for the deaf-and-dumb men who had accompanied us the whole afternoon. They accepted the gifts with many thanks...

On the 5th of March 1960, a Belgian arms transport exploded in Habana harbour, killing 136 members of the crew. As a staff-photographer at the Cuban newspaper 'Revolution,' Korda was assigned to cover the following memorial ceremony held in Havana. Among the prominent guests were Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre. Fidel Castro held one of his endless speeches and Korda was shooting away, when Che Guevara suddenly appeared on the stage. Korda managed to make two shots of him, before Che turned around and disappeared.



Back in his darkroom Korda enlarged, among others, one of the Che frames. The editor at 'Revolution' picked a Castro-picture for the newspaper and returned the rest. Korda liked the Che picture and put it on the wall in his Habana-studio. The picture was still hanging on the wall in 1967, by now tobacco-tinted though, when a man knocked on the door. The person did not present himself, but handed over a letter of introduction from a high-ranking member of the Cuban administration. The letter asked Korda to help this person in his search for a good Che picture. Korda pointed at the wall saying: 'This is my best Che picture.' The visitor agreed and asked for 2 copies of the print. Korda told him to return the next day, which he did. When asked the price of the prints, Korda replied, that since the visitor was a friend of the revolution, he didn't have to pay.


What Korda didn't know was that the visitor was the famous Italian publisher Feltrinelli. Well known in Europe for smuggling the 'Dr. Zivago' manuscript out of The Soviet Union. Feltrinelli came to Cuba directly from Bolivia, where he had been negotiating the release of Regis Debray. Having learned from Debray that Che Guevara was the guerrilla-leader in Bolivia and that the end might be near, Feltrinelli saw a business opportunity in the possible assassination of Che. The corpse of Che Guevara was hardly cold in Bolivia, before you could buy big posters, all around the world, with the Korda-image of Che. Copyright Feltrinelli it said, down in the corner. Korda told me, that in half a year, Feltrinelli sold 2 million posters. Later on the image has been transformed, transplanted, transmitted and transfigured all over the world. Korda never received a penny.