Statues Without Plinths

A Collection of Plinthless Statues, Starting in the Caribbean and Moving East to the Shore of the China Sea

Introduction

There was a time when effigies of ‘the great and the good’ stood on plinths so pigeons could perch on their heads and the rest of us could look up to them. The ultimate was Admiral Nelson whose plinth – or column - is 52m high. The figure itself is over 5m, but for the sculptor (Edward Hodges Bailey) it must be galling to have worked so hard on something that very few people ever see properly.

Nelson's column, Trafalgar Square, London in November sunshine

I don’t know where or when the fashion started but I think I first saw statues of normal sized people standing on the pavement (or, in this case, sidewalk) in Tacoma, Washington (the western US state, not the eastern city) in 1998. The next summer, in the south of France, we found them in several towns; whichever side it started the idea had already jumped the Atlantic. Over the last twenty years it has spread to most corners of the Earth.

I like these statues. Most (but not all) are light hearted, and I appreciate being able to look a statue in the eye. So here is a selection of writers and musicians, ordinary people and eccentrics, cats, dogs and more. My (arbitrary) rules for inclusion accepts a pedestal up to knee height, but the figure must to be roughly life size. I also feel free to bend my rules whenever I want.

Cuba

No doubt I took some photos in Tacoma in 1998, but prints are so much easier to loose than digital photos, so I will start in the Caribbean, in Cuba to be precise.

Havana
(visited March 2020)

When not physically looking up at a sculpture, there is no pressure to metaphorically look up to the person portrayed, you just have to enjoy their company.

El Caballero de Paris outside San Francisco de Asís

El Caballero de Paris (real name José María López Lledín) stands outside the former Church and Convent of St Francis of Assisi. Brought to Havana from Spain by his parents aged 11, he had mental problems in later life and lived on the street while believing he was a French aristocrat. Despite his loose grasp of reality, his charm and education made him a well-known and popular figure. He died in 1985 aged 85. Such statues, appreciate being touched and Lynne earned good luck, as many had done before, by stroking his beard.

Ireland

Dublin
(visited 25 June 2014 - Joyce and Famine Memorial)
24 June 2014 - Oscar Wilde)

The Prick with the Stick (more formally, James Joyce) is arguably the foremost writer in a city of writers, though he spent most of his adult life on the continent of Europe. I am overlooking his plinth as it is (just) below knee high.

Lynne and James Joyce, Earl Street, Dublin

His statue is one of four with rhyming nicknames. The Queer with the Lear is Oscar Wilde who sits on a slab of quartz (not a plinth) in Merrion Square Park opposite the house of his father, an eminent Dublin surgeon.

Lynne and Oscar, Merrion Square Park, Dublin

We missed The Tart with the Cart (Molly Malone) as she had been temporarily removed to allow for the construction of a tramway, and The Floozie in the Jacuzzi (Anna Livia Plurabelle, James Joyce’s personification of the River Liffey) due to my poor research.

The Famine Memorial stands beside the River Liffey. Most of the statues in this post are light-hearted, but not this one. The group of ragged people and their equally thin dog stand on the quay, almost staggering to the point of embarkation. Dublin has plenty of public art, much of it very good, but this is at another level. You can almost feel these people's misery as they embark on a journey they may well not survive. For some it will be the gateway to a new and better life, but as they stand here, on the very edge of Ireland, they have few dreams and little hope.

The Famine Memorial, Dublin

And here is a photo from behind - I felt the sculptor wants us to see them this way, too. They stand facing the sea with their backs to their old lives knowing there can be no return as the cringing dog realises that he will be left behind.

The Famine Memorial, Dublin

Galway
(visited Jul 2016)

Meanwhile, over on the west coast, the city of Galway also has an Oscar Wilde. He shares a seat with his Estonian contemporary and near namesake Eduard Vilde. They never met and as far as I have been able to ascertain, their lives had little else in common. The sculpture was a gift from the people of Estonia when they joined the EU in 2004.

Lynne with Oscar Wilde and Eduard Vilde, Galway
The original (minus Lynne) is in Tartu the 'intellectual capital' of Estonia

United Kingdom

I have a 2013 post entitled Commemorating Comedians in Caerphilly, Morecambe and Ulverston - which I whole-heartedly recommend (well I would, wouldn't I). It consists of statues of four comedians and their background stories. One of them has a plinth, the others would be appropriate here but I don't wish to repeat myself, so please click on the link.

Edinburgh
(Visited July 2021)

Greyfriars Bobbyis by far the oldest work in this post. He has stood patiently, with an ever-shinier nose, atop a substantial plinth since 1873. Only it isn’t really a plinth, it’s a double drinking fountain, people at the top, dogs at the base. As Bobby is a small dog, he needs a plinth or passers-by would trip over him.

Greyfriars Bobby, Edinburgh

Greyfriars Bobby was a Skye Terrier. After his owner died in 1858 the dog kept a vigil at his graveside in the nearby Greyfriars Kirk cemetery, until his own death 14 years later. This demonstrates the heart-warming loyalty of man’s best friend - or perhaps the pathetic neediness of dogs; a self-respecting cat would have raised its tail and stalked away

Burwash, East Sussex
(Visited Sept 2021)

For most of his adult life Rudyard Kipling lived in house called Batemans (currently owned by the National trust and open to the public) just outside the village of Burwash. He now sits in perpetuity on a bench beside the main road through the village.

Lynne and Rudyard Kipling, Burwash

Kipling had the instincts and attitudes of any man of his class born in the latter half of the 19th century. As an unabashed imperialist and the Poet of Empire, he should be out of fashion, but isn’t. He cannot be blamed for the circumstances of his birth, but he should be celebrated for the humanity which shines out of so many of his works. People may argue about his qualities as a poet, but he was undoubtedly one the greatest versifiers in the English language.

Portugal

Loulé
(Visited Oct 2022 and many times previously)

We have been frequent visitors to the Algarve, and for many years Loulé market was our first stop, directly from the airport. In 2006 and 2007 we found the market closed. When it reopened the familiar handsome neo-Classical/Moorish façade fronted a bright, clean and airy new market. Everything was back as it was, only its soul was missing. Revisiting Loulé in 2023 for the first time for several years we found a market trader from the old days, sitting on the steps outside, wondering what had happened to it all.

Bewildered market trader, Loulé

North Macedonia

Stepping lightly from one side of Europe to the other we arrive in a land that was once part of Yugoslavia.

Skopje
(visited May 2015)

Nikola Gruevski (Prime Minister 2006-16) initiated the‘Skopje 2014’ project and ‘Antiquization’. These were exercises in nation-building, promoting a Macedonian identity with unbroken continuity since antiquity and involved, among other things, the building of many large, nationalist statues and memorials. There were two problems. The Macedonia of antiquity, the land of Alexander the Great, was Greek and modern North Macedonians are mostly descended from the Slavic tribes who settled here some 900 year later. Secondly, he spent a great deal of money the city did not have. He resigned after riots in 2016, was subsequently charged with corruption and sentenced to two years in prison. He fled to Hungary and claimed political asylum.

Gruevski’s statues have enormous plinths, but Skopje also has several plinthless statues. A necessary antidote to Gruevski’s bombastic monstrosities, they exemplify a pleasanter and more approachable side of the Macedonian character. The Musicians can be found near ‘Warrior on a Horse’ (under an agreement with the Greeks it is not called ‘Alexander the Great’)

The Musicians, near Macedonia Square, Skopje

While The Divers are on one of the piers of Skopje’s 6th century Stone Bridge. Not great sculpture, perhaps, but it makes you smile, and that is good enough for me.

The Bathers, Stone Bridge, Skopje

Lithuania

Vilnius
(Visited July 2011)

I am always surprised how far east the Baltic States are. Vilnius is actually east of Skopje, but never looks it on a rectangular 2-D map.

After achieving independence from the USSR in 1990 Lithuania had a wealth of statues it no longer wanted, so Lenin and friends were retired to a park near the Belarus border. New statues were raised to various medieval heroes and, in a car park beside an anonymous apartment block in a residential area near the city centre, to Frank Zappa. The bust was erected in 1995 after funds were raised by civil servant Saulius Paukstys. A man blessed with an individual world view and a keen sense of irony, Paukstys commissioned the sculptor of many of the Soviet heroes, to produce the bust. Zappa has no connection with Lithuania, has never visited and before the bust was largely unknown, but the project caught people’s imagination as a wryly ironic gesture in a country that had seen enough of political monuments. (Rough Guide)

Frank Zappa,Vilnius
I know he has a plinth (or column?) but, like Greyfriars Bobby, he would be a trip hazard without it

Armenia

Yerevan
(Visited July 2003)

Mesrop Mashtots (Մեսրոպ Մաշտոց) (362 – 440CE) sits outside the Matenadaran (Մատենադարան) at the top of Mashtots Avenue, one of Yerevan’s main throughfares. The positioning is appropriate, the Matenadaran is a museum and research institute specialising in ancient Armenian manuscripts, and Mashtots is the man credited with inventing the Armenian alphabet (examples above). The (rather weathered) 36 letter alphabet is engraved on the stela to his right.

Mesrop Mashtots, Yerevan

The Fat Cat. I am breaking my own rules here, the plinth is small enough, but the figure is many times life size, but if you are going to portray a Fat Cat it has to be a very large and very fat cat. I hope this is a political statement, but I don't know if fat cat has the same meaning in either the sculptor's native Colombia, or Armenia.

Fat Cat, Yerevan

Georgia

Tbilisi
(visited August 2014)

The Tamada.

Modern Georgia includes the ancient land of Colchis, where Jason and the Argonauts rowed to steal the Golden Fleece.

The myth of the Golden Fleece has historical origins. Many of the streams flowing down from the high Caucasus bear gold, and it was traditional extracted by damming the flow with fleeces so the shiny metal adhered to the sticky untreated wool. This practice may date back to the 3rd millennium BCE, and archaeologists have found huge quantities of golden grave goods, many of which can be seen in the National Museum in Tbilisi. Among them is a seated figure, less than two centimetres tall, holding a drinking horn.

Tamada and us, Tbilisi

The supra (feast) is an essential part of Georgian culture and every supra need a tamada, (toastmaster) who proposes toasts for others to elaborate upon and so keep the wine flowing. Cast in bronze, many times the size of the original, the little fellow has become Tbilisi’s permanent honorary toastmaster. Every visitor to the city poses with him, those small enough sitting on his lap.

China

With a long eastward leap we reach the final country of this post, and two very different cities.

Pingyao
(visited Sept 2014)

600km southwest of Beijing, Pingyao is an old, walled Qing/Ming city, an artfully pickled oasis among the usual Chinese urban sprawl. We visited during the mid-autumn holiday when the town was packed and the Chinese tourist machine was turned up to eleven.

During our perambulation on the city wall we met the night watchmen…

The Night-watchmen, Pingyao city walls

…and the city governor holding a writing brush and about to get down to work. Nothing is taken too seriously here.

The city governor gets down to work, Pingyao

Hangzhou
(visited Nov 2016)

200 km southwest of Shanghai, Hangzhou is the centre of a metropolitan region of over 10m inhabitants. It is the home to Alibaba, one of the world's largest retailers and e-commerce companies and the fifth-largest artificial intelligence company. If Pingyao is China’s past, Hangzhou is its future. Street statues here are not primarily to amuse, though they may make older people smile.

Workers, Hangzhou

For many they are images of a past they do not remember.

Street market, Hangzhou

I have more, but this as probably as much (or more) than most would want at one sitting, so I shall stop. I do like these statues, I like to see who or what the locals wish to commemorate, or how they view their past. Most are not intended to be taken too seriously while one is very serious indeed, but all add to the interest of the towns or cities they call home. And can I have a bonus point for for a post which references Greyfriars Bobby, Frank Zappa and Alexander the Great?

Possibly also of Interest

Statues Without Plinths (2023)
Socialist Realism: In Praise of Bad Art (2022)
The Boxes of Carvoeiro (2016)

Sculptors and Dates of Installation (when known)

Liverpool
Duke of Wellington by George Anderson Lawson, 1865
Havana
El Caballero de Paris by José Ramón Villa Soberón, 2001
Dublin
James Joyce by Marjorie Fitzgibbon, 1990.
Oscar Wilde by Danny Osborne, 1997
Famine Memorial by Rowan Gillespie, 1997
Galway Wilde and Vilde by Tiiu Kirsipuu, 2004
Edinburgh
Greyfriars Bobby by William Brodie, 1873
Burwash
Rudyard Kipling by Victoria Atkinson, 2018
Loulé
Market Trader by Teresa Paulino and Pedro Felix
Vilnius
Frank Zappa by Konstantinas Bagdonas, 1995
Yerevan Mesrop Mastots by Ghukas Chubaryan, 1968
Fat Cat by Fernando Botero
Tbilisi
Tamada by Zurab Tsereteli, 2013

Cuba (8): Jibacoa and a Strange Trip Home

Covid Affects the End of our Trip and Maroons us at Home for a Long time

Going All-Inclusive

Cuba

I dislike the concept of all-inclusive resorts; no one should be encouraged to visit a country and opt out of all engagement with it other than its climate. But we had already engaged with Cuba, and (as Bob said) you can't criticise what you don't understand, so we gave it a brief try.

The resort building and gardens were well-maintained. Our ground-floor room was clean, bright and comfortable, the patio over-looked the pool area, and the beach was just a small step beyond.

The pool area from our patio

The main restaurant served buffets for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Breakfast apart I dislike buffets, the food is usually tepid and tired, the ambience more feeding station than restaurant. In Jibacoa these disadvantages were exaggerated by arranging the tables in straight lines. The staff proceeded up and down (they reminded me of exam invigilators), sometimes removing empty plates, sometimes distributing wine (which exam invigilators don't). All drinks were, of course, ‘free’ but cost control was achieved by never more than half-filling the tiny glasses. What the wine was, other than cheap, nobody said and nobody seemed to care.

Two other ‘free’ restaurants were bookable and after enduring the ‘cafeteria’ on Saturday night, I tried to book one of the alternatives for Sunday. Both, I was told, were closed. Throughout our 48-hour stay (already reduced from 72), guests were continually leaving, and few if any arrived. The curse of Covid was closing the resort, facility by facility.

The saving grace was the upstairs ‘social bar’ providing cocktails before dinner and digestifs afterwards in a comfortable and civilised atmosphere.

Jibacoa is on the north coast (The Straight of Florida) a little west of Matanzas

Sun, Sand and Pool

The resort’s residents spend most of their time when not eating and/or drinking indulging in the pleasures of sun, sand and pool. There were nice beaches to walk on…

The beach, Jibacoa

…and a warm sea to swim in (though Lynne still complained it was cold, and had a current)…

Lynne in the sea, Jibacoa

…but for most this involved lying on their backs shielding their eyes from a sun that shone happily in a clear blue sky.

I can just be seen bobbing about in the sea

The accommodation blocks surrounded a pool more used for lying around than swimming in. As guest numbers dwindled, there were times when I almost had the pool to myself.

Not quite having the pool to myself

I also spent some time on the patio in the company of Hilary Mantel, whose fictional account of the Tudor court rings so true it is hard to believe she was not really there.

'Bring up the Bodies' Jibacoa patio

Cuban -American Relations Part 4

Fidel Castro 1959
(Public Domain)

A serious interlude among the trivialities. This is the fourth and final part. Part 1 can be found on the way to Viñales, Part 2 on the way to Trinidad and Part 3 in Trinidad.

President Batista had been an American client, but he had sorely tested their patience and American support during the revolution was, at best, half-hearted. The revolution had included non-communist forces and in 1959 it remained unclear whether Fidel Castro was himself a Communist. Given that ambiguity President Eisenhower recognised the new regime and gave it a cautious welcome.

Dwight D Eisenhower 1959
(Public Domain)

The ambiguity soon evaporated and the Americans began to fear Communist insurgencies spreading throughout Latin America. In 1960 Castro nationalised American assets in Cuba, so Eisenhower froze Cuban assets on American soil, severed diplomatic ties and imposed a trade embargo, the ‘bloqueo’ which still stands today. He also directed the CIA to assist Cuban exiles in recruiting a militia and in planning a counter-revolutionary invasion.

Eisenhower informed President-elect Kennedy of this just before his inauguration in January 1961. Kennedy permitted the invasion to go ahead in April, but the landing in the Bay of Pigs was a spectacular failure.

The Cuban Missile Crisis: A Grossly Simplified Account

John F Kennedy 1963
Public Domain

Castro realised he needed friends. The USSR was the obvious candidate and First Secretary Khrushchev was delighted to have an ally so close to his great enemy. In July 1962 Khrushchev and Castro agreed that the presence of nuclear missiles in Cuba would effectively deter any future invasion. Deliveries started almost immediately.

Kennedy could not countenance Soviet missiles so close to the US mainland and on the 22nd of October set up a naval blockade to prevent further missile deliveries. Khrushchev called this ‘outright piracy.’ As Soviet ships carrying missiles approached the blockade the world teetered on the brink of nuclear war. My 12-year-old self was convinced we were all going to die, but on the 25th Soviet freighters bound for Cuba turned back.

Nikita Khrushchev 1963
German Federal Archive

The crisis was not yet over, some missiles remained in Cuba, and Kennedy considered an invasion to remove them. Convinced this invasion was imminent Castro asked Khrushchev for a pre-emptive nuclear strike.

Wiser heads prevailed. In a secret deal the USSR agreed to remove the missiles from Cuba and the USA would remove its Jupiter missiles from Turkey, the only NATO country with a land border with the USSR.

Since the Crisis

Cuban-American relations had reached rock bottom and had improved little by 2014, though President Carter agreed a measure of mutual diplomatic recognition in 1977. From the start of his Presidency, Barak Obama worked to normalise relations with Cuba. Full diplomatic relations were restored in 2015, travel restrictions were eased and economic initiatives made. Progress has been on hold or in reverse during the Trump years.

Being embargoed by their biggest and richest neighbour has not been easy for Cuba, but both sides have displayed remarkable determination and pig-headedness for 60 years.

Cocktails

‘Free’ drinks in Cuba means cocktails, and the menus were lengthy. Unfortunately, not everything was available. The background music to our stay was the trundle of suitcases as more and more people moved out, while nobody came to replace them. The bars closed one by one and empty bottles in those still open were not always replaced. The shake of a head became an increasingly frequent response to an order as key ingredients disappeared. I asked for canchànchara, daiquiri’s ruder, cruder forebear, in several locations but was repeatedly thwarted.

As I confided in the Viñales post, we are decades too young to have experienced the first cocktail boom, and far too old to have been caught up in the second. While not arriving in Cuba as cocktail virgins, we were certainly inexperienced, but if Jibacoa did not quite bring the variety we had hoped for, there was enough for us to lose our ingénu(e) status.

Piña Colada

I have always suspected I was the wrong demographic for Piña Colada but coconut and pineapple are two of my favourite flavours and with the addition of Cuban white rum what’s not to like? The toothaching sweetness, that’s what! Like Baileys this is a drink which attracts young people, generally young females (I try not to be sexist, but such is my observation) not grumpy old men. ‘Serve with an umbrella for kitsch appeal’ says the BBC Good Food Guide; mine came in a plastic cup - more naff than kitsch.

Piña Colada in a plastic cup, Jibacoa

The Collins Family

I was under the impression that John Collins was whisk(e)y and Tom Collins gin based. I was wrong, they are both feature gin, though different styles of gin. Confusingly, there is a Bourbon based version of John Collins and that is the only one I had previously encountered. Either way the spirit is sweetened and diluted with soda water until it loses its character. Ron is Spanish for rum, so Ron Collins has a better name, but otherwise the same problem.

Tequila Sunrise

Tequila was another drink we had not encountered before visiting Mexico in 2017. As a spirit we preferred Mescal, but Tequila does make a good Margarita. Here, Lynne tried a Tequila sunrise. Grenadine and orange juice give it colour and fruitiness while triple sec lends the tequila a little more bite. Lynne approved, but as the photo shows, I had by this time reverted to Daiquiris.

A Tequila Sunrise and a Daiquiri

And finally, Cuba’s finest….

Havana 7-year-old Rum

Not a cocktail, but a proper after dinner drink, a strong, rich, complex delight to be sipped in small quantities for great pleasure.

Wild Life

The resort is set up for humans - the grass is neatly trimmed, the flowerbeds carefully weeded – but the natural world cannot be completely excluded.

The Greater Antilles Grackle

The Greater Antillean Grackle is a fine name for a very common bird. The Greater Antilles (for those as ignorant as I was until I looked it up) is the northern region of the Caribbean - Cuba, Hispaniola (Haiti and the Dominican Republic), Puerto Rico, Jamaica and a host of smaller islands. Grackles belong to the icterid family, the new-world blackbirds, though few of them (the Greater Antillean Grackle apart) are actually black, nor are they particularly close relatives of the old-world blackbirds.

Greater Antillean Grackle, Jibacoa

It is a handsome bird with shiny plumage and a tail that appears to be turned on its side. Present in large numbers they hopped about the lawns or came to the swimming pool mob handed, standing in a line and drinking thirstily as though committed to emptying it.

Anole Lizard

I think this is an anole lizard, but which of the 300+ species is another question. It has apparently lost its tail, but seemed happy enough, spending most of its day basking on a small rock outside our front door.

Anole lizard, Jibacoa

A Strange Journey Home

We arrived in Jibacoa late afternoon Saturday (21st) and left the same time on Monday. Our first stay in an all-inclusive resort rather confirmed our prejudices; they provide sea, sun, sand and booze and the only clue to the host country is the accent of the staff. If you work hard all year and feel a need to spend your two-week break in ghettoised idleness, then these resorts are fair enough, I suppose, but to anyone interested in travel, they are an abomination. The gods of Covid had decreed we would leave a day early, but we had already begun to feel trapped and bored. I do wish we had spent longer in Havana, though.

The airport is a pleasant 80-minute taxi-ride along the coast. We shared the first 20 minutes with a local company rep. ‘How long were you at Jibacoa,’ he asked. ‘Two days,’ we said. ‘Oh no, what a shame, such a short time in Cuba!’ We told him we had been in Cuba longer and enjoyed visiting other parts of the island. He seemed surprised that anybody did that.

Havana’s small scruffy airport was heaving with people, many in masks, but frequently lowering or raising them to talk as though their mere presence was enough to ward off danger.

24-Mar-2020

Our overnight flight to Paris (the flight we had originally booked, only a day earlier) was full, but on-time and uneventful. Unfortunately, Air France/KLM had consolidated their Birmingham flights, necessitating an extra hop to Amsterdam. To enter the Schengen area, we had to produce our Amsterdam boarding cards to prove we were not staying.

Charles de Gaulle and Schiphol are two of the world’s biggest and busiest airports. With the shops and cafés closed and the concourses all but deserted, walking through them was a strange experience. Birmingham, smaller but usually busy, was the same. We showed our passports, collected our cases and trundled them to the bus stop where we waited in post-apocalyptic loneliness.

Birmingham Airport after the apocalypse

The parking company sent a 25-seater bus just for us; it was the second day of lockdown and only a handful of cars remained to be collected. We drove home along empty motorways and when we got there, we stayed there, because that was the ‘new normal’.

Where are they all?

Cuba

Part 1: Havana
Part 2: Havana to Viñales
Part 3: Walking the Viñales Valley
Part 4: Viñales to Trinidad de Cuba
Part 5: Trinidad (1) The Town
Part 6: Trinidad (2) Valle de Los Ingenios
Part 7: Santa Clara and Che Guevara
Part 8: Jibacoa and a Strange Trip Home

Cuba (7): Santa Clara and Che Guevara

A Memorial to a Flawed Hero

Cuba

Breakfast Amusements

Cuba’s default breakfast is a big plate of fruit followed by an omelette, toast and jam.

The jam is resistible. It is red, though nothing in the flavour suggests red fruit – or any fruit at all – and is solid enough to be carved. The fresh fruit, though, is excellent, a joy every morning, while the omelette is negotiable.

Breakfast was served by Maydi’s gofer and this morning our Swedish neighbour asked for a boiled egg instead of an omelette. The gofer nodded. ‘Hard boiled,’ our Swedish friend continued, ‘very hard boiled.’ ‘How many?’ asked the gofer. ‘Seven.’ ‘Seven?’ she replied thinking she had misheard. ‘Seven,’ he repeated firmly, holding up seven fingers. She looked surprised, turned and headed downstairs to the kitchen.

I waited a little then ventured ‘Do you really want seven?’ ‘Yes’ he said, I like eggs very hard boiled.’ ‘One egg boiled for seven minutes?’ He looked at me like I was being obtuse. ‘Of course.’ ‘I think,’ I suggested, ‘you have just ordered seven eggs.’ ‘No!’ ‘Yes, that’s why she looked so surprised.’

After a moment's thought he shook his head, pushed back his chair and headed for the kitchen. Minutes later laughter could be heard from below as light dawned. English is the lingua franca of the tourist trade, sometimes as a legacy of the British Empire, more often under the influence of Hollywood. It is convenient for English speakers, though it makes us lazy; we are notoriously poor at learning languages. It can also lead to amusing misunderstandings.

Today we travel from Trinidad on the south coast, north to Santa Clara then northwest to Jibacoa on the coast just west of Matanzas

North to Santa Clara

A driver turned up precisely on time at 9 o’clock. He had a shiny new Hyundai and wore a mask and plastic gloves so as not to catch any nasty diseases from us. Even from our tourist bubble we had seen the world beginning to change; Covid behaviours that would become commonplace were new and, I thought, a touch comical. I was wrong about that.

Our Well Protected Driver

We were headed for a seaside resort on the north coast, an hour from Havana, but with a detour to the mausoleum of Che Guevara in Santa Clara on the way.

Santa Clara is 100 km north of Trinidad, a journey scheduled for 2 hours on the slow and sometimes busy road around the Sierra Escambray. Our first hold-up was in Trinidad as one the queues which are a feature of Cuban life was spilling onto the road. I do not know what they were hoping to buy, but we had heard that soap was currently in short supply. The queues are a consequence of the American ‘bloqueo’ - a subject I will return to next post.

Queue for something in Trinidad

We had expected driving round the Sierra to be scenic, but the mountains were always too far away and usually screened by roadside vegetation.

A Less than thrilling picture of the Sierra Escambray

The road was in good condition, though at times narrow and, to start with, busy with buses and lorries. The countryside looked poor, scrubland with occasionally fields prepared for planting and some sugar cane and manioc.

Ploughed fields north of Trinidad

We overtook one ox-cart, several tractors and many horse-drawn vehicles. There were also cars and vans, and buses apparently converted from army trucks, the windows well above passenger head height.

Driving north from Trinidad

There were a few villages, straggles of poor dwellings….

Village south of Manicaragua

...and a shop without a queue – perhaps they had nothing to sell.

Village shop, south of Manicaragua

An hour and a quarter into the journey we reached Manicaragua, the first small town we had encountered.

Manicaragua

It looked a little more prosperous than the surrounding countryside….

Manicaragua

…as did much of the last part of the journey to Santa Clara.

Santa Clara

Santa Clara

Santa Clara was founded in 1689 by two extended local families and 37 former citizens of San Juan de los Remedios which lies on the coast to the north. Remedios was continually being ravaged by pirates and the 37 wanted a quieter life. Santa Clara outgrew Remedios long ago and is now the fifth biggest city in Cuba with a population of some 250,000.

In 1958 Santa Clara was the scene of the final battle of the Cuban revolution. After preliminary skirmishes two columns led by Che Guevara and Camilo Cienfuegos advanced on the city on the morning of the 31st of December. The defence was chaotic and brief, government forces capitulating by mid-afternoon. Twelve hours later Fulgencio Batista fled Cuba allowing Fidel Castro to enter Havana and assume the presidency.

We saw almost nothing of the city. Our driver took us west round the efficient circunvalación to the Che Guevara Mausoleum which lies just a just a couple of hundred metres inside the ring-road.

The Ernesto Guevara Sculptural Complex

The Sculptural Complex is a large concrete plinth, with a statue of the great man on a column, a bas relief of him in action and three stones, two inscribed with Guevara’s credo, and a third with more words than I care to translate.

The Ernesto Guevara Sculptural Complex, Santa Clara

The statue is described as being 7m high, but I suspect that includes the column. The words underneath are Hasta la victoria siempre (‘Ever onward to victory’ – Spanish word order can sometimes appear eccentric to the anglophone).

Ernesto 'Che' Guevara, Santa Clara

The bas relief shows the advance of Guevara’s column on Santa Clara.

Bas relief, Ernesto Guevara Sculptural Park

The inscription in the corner translates as ‘Commander Ernesto Guevara was assigned the mission of leading a column of rebels from the Sierra Maestra to the province of Las Villas.’

Three inscribed blocks are, I feel, too much writing for a ‘sculptural complex’ but then Fidel Castro was famous for his immensely long speeches, so perhaps that is the Cuban way. Below is the middle-sized block…

The medium sized inscription Ernesto Guevara Sculptural Complex, Santa Clara

…which roughly translates as ‘I feel so much a patriot of Latin America, of every Latin American country, that whenever necessary, I would willingly give my life for the liberation of any Latin American country, asking nothing, exempting nothing and exploiting no one.’ 

Che Guevara: A Very Brief Biography

Born in Rosaria, Argentina, in 1928 Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara was from a comfortably-off middle class family with leftist inclinations.

Che as a medical student in 1950
Photo in the Public Domain, sourced from  Wikipedia

In 1948 he entered the University of Buenos Aires as a medical student and played rugby for the Club Universitario de Buenos Aires (prophetically known as CUBA).

During his student years he took two long motorcycle trips through South America. Everywhere he saw poverty, hunger and disease caused by the greed of the powerful, and came to view Latin America as a single entity in need of a continent-wide revolution.

He qualified as a doctor in 1953, and in 1954 went to Guatemala where the democratically elected President Jacobo Árbenz’s land reform programme had transferred unused land from the American United Fruit Company to peasant farmers. In May Árbenz was replaced by the vicious authoritarian Castillo Armas in a coup organised for the United Fruit Company by the CIA. Guevara concluded that it was no co-incidence that Allen Dulles, the director of the CIA, was also on the board of the United Fruit Company. Wanting to fight on with the Communist youth militia, Guevara was disappointed when Árbenz bowed to the inevitable and capitulated.

Che in Cuba, 1958
Photo in Public Domain, sourced from Wikipedia

He escaped to Mexico City and was working as a doctor when he was introduced to the Castro brothers. Cuba’s President Batista was another repressive leader controlled by US business interests and Guevara agreed to help the Castros overthrow him. He participated in guerrilla training, intending to be their combat medic.

In the event his charisma, physical strength and courage made him much more than that. After the revolution he became Fidel Castro’s de facto Number 2, travelling widely to present the Cuban case to world leaders.

Guevara was a revolutionary not an administrator, so in early 1965 he left Cuba for the Congo (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) with a small Cuban force, offering his experience and expertise to the Marxist Simba movement. By November he had concluded that the rebel leaders were corrupt and the venture a failure. He wrote: ‘we cannot liberate, all by ourselves, a country that does not want to fight’

Che in Bolivia, photo in Public Domain sourced from Wikipedia

A year later he was in Bolivia, hoping to foment a pan-Latin American Marxist Revolution. However, expected support from local dissidents did not materialise and nor did help from the Bolivian Communist Party which Guevara described as "distrustful, disloyal and stupid". His well-equipped guerrilla force of some 50 men scored several early successes but he was unable to recruit from among the local inhabitants, many preferring to become government informants.

On the 8th of October 1967 Bolivian forces surrounded Guevarra’s encampment and in the following action he was wounded and captured. The next day he was murdered – some called it an execution – and later buried in an unmarked grave.

Once dead ‘Che’ was a martyr, and lived on as a poster boy for every student’s wall.

The poster on our spare bedroom wall!

The Che Guevara Mausoleum and Museum

The sculptural complex sits on the top of a low hill. Round the back is the entrance to the Museum and Mausoleum which are beneath the concrete plinth. We were unsure whether it was open to all or if we needed tickets, but when the door opened to admit a waiting group, we tagged on behind.

The mausoleum, to the left is dark and sombre.

In July 1997 after a year’s searching near the Bolivian town of Vallegrande, Cuban geologists and Argentine forensic anthropologists discovered two graves containing seven bodies. Dental records positively identified one body as that of Che Guevara. On 17 October 1997, Guevara's remains, along with those of six of his fellow combatants, were laid to rest with full military honours in this purpose-built mausoleum. Fidel Castro lit the eternal flame.

We stood among the graves in silence for a moment.

To the right is the museum. It tells the story of Guevara's life with many photographs and documents and a sprinkling of objects he used – his water bottle, his pipe, his compass etc. Neither the mausoleum nor the museum permitted photographs.

Over the road from the museum/mausoleum is a neatly tended, tiered graveyard and we walk round reading the names and dates. Most were of those who died during the revolution, but there were more recent burials too as the revolutionary generation passes quietly on. Nobody stopped me taking photographs there, but I have none. Oh, well.

On to Jibacoa

Leaving the complex we returned to the circunvalación and took the link road to the A1 Autopista Nacional which runs for 360 km down the island's spine southeast from Havana. It is nor particularly impressive or well-made as such roads go, but it is more than sufficient for the meagre traffic.

The A1, Autopista Nacional

Our driver stopped for lunch at a service station. He had a sandwich while we waited patiently for the coffee machine to be mended. Our table had a good view of the television where Covid was receiving extensive coverage. After filmed reports from China and Europe a Cuban minister appeared to explain the local measures. Spanish is easy when it is a matter of reading the captions, but when anyone speaks we quickly become lost.

Back on the road we passed the junction where we had turned south to Cienfuegos three days ago, and 30 km later swung north towards Matanzas. We passed through much richer agricultural land than in the morning with fields of sugar cane, maize, oranges and bananas.

We hit the coast at Matanzas, known as the home of the rumba, but more obviously to us the home of tank farms and other oil installations. 35 km further east is Playa de Jibacoa and the Memories Resort where we were originally scheduled to stay three nights, but it would now be two as Covid was shutting down European airlines.

Memories, Jibacoa and Che (again)

The next post will be about the Memories resort – it will be a short one – but our stay gave us time to think about what we had seen. And here are some thoughts.

Lynne meditating beside the sea

The student accommodation of my youth, basic as it usually was, was often adorned with a poster of Che Guevara. I never had one then, but I have one now, so was Che a real hero?

He was certainly a man of great charisma and energy and he was totally sincere in his belief that Marxist revolution was the only way to improve the lot of the common people. But apart from Cuba, revolutionary success eluded him. And maybe he had a death wish. When his Congo venture was failing, he had to be persuaded from sending his Cuban troops home and staying on alone to fight to the death. And fight to the death was what he did in Bolivia.

In Cuba he had turned up with the Castros and a small force and recruited a large one. Did this experience lead him to believe that successful revolutions needed only a charismatic leader and a small force prepared to grow.?

It worked once, but he had been accompanied the Castro brothers, Cubans who knew their country. How did this middle-class Argentinian white boy look to Congolese villagers or Bolivian peasants when he arrived in their midst and announced he was their saviour?

The idle rich in the worker's paradise - but the idle are not that rich and the paradise is less than entirely paradisiacal

He met Juan Perón shortly after leaving the Congo. Perón’s verdict? He was an immature Utopian. Society needs Utopian thinkers, and just possibly maturity is an over-rated quality; my problem with Che Guevara is that he was an immature Utopian with a gun.You don't make people better by shooting them.

So, no hero then, but will I take down my poster? No I won't, Guevara, who died in 1967 symbolises the spirit of 1968. I was an 18-year-old starting University in September 1968. I knew it was a special time, but I did not really appreciate it. Perhaps the poster is a mild reproach to my younger self for not quite getting it, for being genuinely immature but not Utopian enough.

Cuba

Part 1: Havana
Part 2: Havana to Viñales
Part 3: Walking the Viñales Valley
Part 4: Viñales to Trinidad de Cuba
Part 5: Trinidad (1) The Town
Part 6: Trinidad (2) Valle de Los Ingenios
Part 7: Santa Clara and Che Guevara
Part 8: Jibacoa and a Strange Trip Home