Ken Becker. Canadian Press.
National Post. November 25, 2000
When Canadian writer Alan Twigg was in Cuba researching his new book on the
island, he directed his driver to the house where Fidel Castro was born, near
the town of Biran, off the northeast coast.
Approaching the hacienda, they were stopped by a chain blocking the road.
Two soldiers emerged from a guardhouse.
"Their job is to make sure nobody goes on the property," Twigg
explains from his home in Vancouver. "Fidel is such a megalomaniac, he
wants to keep such places his private preserve."
The Canadian chatted with the guards and asked if he could use a nearby
outhouse. Once inside, he leaned out a window facing the Castro home and snapped
a photo.
"The flash went off and I thought I was done. Luckily, the guards had
their backs turned." The grainy photo is one of many original and archival
pictures in Cuba: A Concise History for Travellers (Bluefield Books, $16.95).
The book is offered as a primer for the tens of thousands of Canadians who
visit the Caribbean island each year. It starts with the arrival of "Cuba's
first tourist" -- Christopher Columbus -- in 1492. But much of the text
traces the revolution that Castro led in the 1950s, culminating with his
ascension to power in 1959.
Visitors searching for Fidel sites have to venture beyond the popular resort
beaches of Varadero, near Havana. Spotting El Presidente himself is trickier,
perhaps a consequence of a claim that he has been the target of more than 600
assassination plots.
"The seat of government is in Fidel's pants," Twigg says. "Nobody
knows where he's going to be from day to day. Nobody knows where he's going to
sleep from night to night. He has various safe houses around Havana. About the
only time you may see him, except when he's giving one of his six-hour speeches
on television, is when a motorcade speeds by on the streets of Havana."
One place Castro has called home is a top-floor suite in the Habana Libre
hotel, formerly the Havana Hilton, in the heart of the capital. From there, he
ran the country and entertained his mistresses -- a bazooka under the bed, and
his heavily armed top commanders in adjoining rooms.
"I went to the front desk and asked if I could go up and see Fidel's
rooms," says Twigg. He received blank stares and no co-operation.
But a few sites personally precious to Castro are open to the public:
The Museum of the Revolution is the one-time presidential palace of
Fulgencio Batista, who was overthrown by Castro. It contains exhibits that
include the bloodstained uniforms of dead revolutionaries and photographs of
Castro, Che Guevara and tortured comrades. A park outside displays the motor
yacht Granma, which transported Castro and 81 guerrillas to Cuba from exile in
Mexico in 1956; a delivery truck used in the 1957 assault on the palace; a
Russian tank employed against the unsuccessful 1961 U.S.-led Bay of Pigs
invasion and an airplane turbine, allegedly from a U.S. U-2 spy plane shot down
during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.
The Moncada army barracks, in Santiago de Cuba, on the island's southeast
coast, was where Castro and a ragtag band of 120 men and two women attacked a
garrison of 1,000 soldiers in 1953. Nearly all of the rebels were killed or
captured. Now, complete with bullet holes, the site is a museum and school.
West of Santiago de Cuba is Purgatory Point, where the Granma hit a sandbar
on Dec. 2, 1956, forcing Castro and his followers to wade ashore, leaving most
of their weapons behind, before fleeing to the Sierra Maestra mountains to start
the revolution. In a parking lot off the beach is a replica of the Granma.
For more information on Cuba, phone 416-362-0700 in Toronto or check the Web
sites www.cuba.com and www.cubaweb.cu
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