Our only full day in Santa Clara took us initially to the Arnesto Che Guevara Monument about 2km outside of the city. There they had a statue of the legend and underneath was a museum dedicated to his life story. There was also a mausoleum where Che and various other men who died with him in Bolivia are buried. Unfortunately no cameras were allowed inside but the display was quite vast. There were many pictures, texts, and objects that Che carried, wrote and used during his life. It was very interesting and inspiring to see a story of a man who managed to inspire and change so much.
Afterwards we walked back into town to see if we could find a bus that went to the university. On the way we stopped off at a small kiosk to replenish our bodies with some cheap peso refrescos and a sandwich. Walking in the daylight sun was nearly unbearable so stops along the way are a must. We then carried on and ran into a small theater who had its doors open for refreshments, so we tanked up again with some fluids.
Next stop was the bus stop. We knew roughly where to get the bus and we asked along the way to point us in the right direction. We walked past a museum that had the famous armored train that was captured by Che’s army back in the last month of 1958. We carried on walking and we sat down to catch a breath as the heat was getting to us… I wouldn’t like to see how it is here in summer! We nearly gave up and were contemplating whether to go back or not, but then, out of nowhere came the bus and stopped approximately 50m up the road, so we had to run a bit. The bus cost 20 Cuban cent which is about €0.006 in our world. We didn’t have enough change so we gave the driver 1 Cuban peso (€0.03) which we thought was reasonable.
We arrived at the university about 8km outside of Santa Clara. There is a train that normally runs during the week, but as this was a Sunday, most students go home for the weekend or head to the beach. The place was pretty empty and run down. Most blocks were quite spread out from another and most of the roads connecting them were lined with trees either side. The student accommodations looked very neglected and from first impressions one would think that they were abandoned given their appearance. We walked around the campus and the faculty blocks and it seems that the biggest we saw was indeed biochemical and on the other side of the main road agriculture where huge fields were being used as testing grounds for new technologies.
During this tour I think we were nearly died of heat exhaustion. We would have liked to see more but it was just too hot to hang around, so we got on the bus back into town where we found a great peso restaurant with some awesome cartoons on the wall. This meal was of excellent quality and it set us back 120 Cuban pesos which is about €4 for two main courses, two beers and an orange juice. If we stayed here any longer I think we would have eaten here most evenings.
After a good siesta we went back the the square and got ourselves a nice pizza from a peso take-away which cost 30 cuban pesos for two pizzas (€1). We had a stroll around and then coincidentally ran in to Reiner who we talked to the night before. We got some beers together and had another informative chat with him until we were too knackerd to talk any more.
