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.
Then, a plain pigeon on a tree.
Stay tuned for more Cuban birds on this blog!