After arriving in Santa Clara city in Cuba on 8 March 2017, we woke up on 9 March. The pupils had woken up as well, and walked to their schools.
The flower shop people had woken up was well. And the house sparrows.
We continued to the Che Guevara mausoleum. In December 1958, the dictator of Cuba, Fulgencio Batista, had sent an armoured train full of weapons, ammunition and soldiers east to destroy Fidel Castro’s rebel army. However, Che managed to stop the train with a tractor of the local school of Agronomy. The Batista officers asked for a truce; the private soldiers fraternized with the rebels, saying that they were tired of fighting against their own people. Che’s troops captured the armoured train. This was such a blow to Batista that within 12 hours he fled Cuba to fellow dictator Trujillo of the Dominican Republic, taking much of the treasury of the Cuban government with him: worth a billion (1 January 1959, pre-inflation) United States dollars. Batista then moved to another dictatorial country: Portugal. Finally, he died in 1973 in Spain, two years before Francisco Franco, the dictator of that country.
Decades after Che was murdered in Bolivia on the orders of the CIA, his remains were brought to Santa Clara, to be buried in the mausoleum along with fellow fighters of the 1958 decisive battle.
At 9:36, our bus crosses the Rio Manacas river.
Turkey vultures. Cattle egrets.
10:20: an osprey flies above a river.
We lunch at a restaurant, where we see these chickens.
At 13:35, we cross the border of Camaguey province.
At 15:46, we approach the national park, and see a Cuban crow.
At 15:58, we see a palm crow.
As we walk, a common ground dove.
Two noisy Cuban parrots feeding on fruit.
A palm warbler.
A Cuban tody with food in its bill.
Two smooth-billed anis.
A female black-and white warbler.
A limpkin.
Then, a plain pigeon on a tree.
And a Cuban green woodpecker and a West Indian woodpecker together on another tree.
Stay tuned for more Cuban birds on this blog!
Dear Kitty. Some blog 
What a wonderful holiday you must have had! And in such a fascinating place in the world.. 🙂
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Thanks for your kind words! There will be more beautiful Cuban birds on this blog 🙂
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I’ll look out for them… 🙂
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As soon as photos will have been sorted out 🙂
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Tuesday 10th October 2017
CUBAN President Raul Castro led commemorations for the 50th anniversary of the death of his comrade Che Guevara on Sunday.
The ceremony was held at the mausoleum of the Argentinian-born “Heroic Guerrilla” in the central city of Santa Clara — the day before yesterday’s anniversary of his 1967 execution in Bolivia.
Santa Clara was the site of the last battle in the Cuban revolution in 1958, when two columns led by Che and Camilo Cienfuegos attacked the city, derailing an armoured train carrying troops sent by dictator Fulgencio Batista.
About 60,000 residents of the province attended the ceremony.
Vice-President Miguel Diaz-Canel reiterated Cuba’s defiance of US imperialism despite more than half a century of economic blockade.
“The example of Che grows huge and multiplies in our people, who will not surrender and will always defend the revolution,” he said, insisting: “We decide on the necessary changes in Cuba.”
Referring to recent bizarre US allegations of “sonic attacks” on embassy staff, Mr Diaz-Canel said: “These events are clear evidence of what Che alerted us when he said you cannot rely the least on imperialism.
“These are difficult times,” the vice-president warned.
“Powerful interests of domination and conquest prevail, there are frequent wars of intervention, danger grows of a nuclear war.”
He said the imperialist order “repeatedly resorts to destabilisation and regime-change policies against legitimately established governments” — a clear reference to recent opposition riots in Cuba’s ally Venezuela that left 124 people dead.
“The processes taking place in Latin America are an evident expression of those colonising plans and, in our case, express the marked interests of a political and economic reconquest that opens the way to brutal capitalism.”
http://morningstaronline.co.uk/a-40f0-Castro-leads-tributes-at-the-Heroic-Guerillas-monument#.Wd0w1jtpEdU
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