Memorial Che & Plaza de la Revolucion

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.