The Importance of being Earnest

There are two Ernests that are revered in Cuba.  First is Ernesto “Che" Guevara, an Argentinian doctor and revolutionary that is worshipped in Cuba. (I read somewhere that his mother was Irish and her name was Lynch.)  He is THE poster child for the revolution and his picture is everywhere.   His handsome image in his black beret with the 5 point revolutionary star hangs in banks, our hotels, side of buses, billboards, newsstands sell book about him.  As our guide said, “Once he was radicalized, he needed a cause to fight for” so he went to the Congo and then to Bolivia, where he died.  In my reading, Che led the last battle that toppled the Batista regime and took command of the military in Havana. He became greatly at odds with Fidel, left Cuba, renounced his Cuban citizenship and was forced into exile by Fidel.   In 1997, Che's body was returned to Cuba and buried close to 37 other guerrillas who lost their lives in Che’s last campaign.  A cult has been built around Che and he is now immortalized as a symbol of the purity of the revolution.  The benefit of dying in your prime when all that can be seen is your potential!

Che was the first billboard we saw leaving the airport.

It is absolutely impossible to walk more than a block without finding Che somewhere.

 Chris and I at Finca Vigia, Hemingway's home outside of Havana.

The other famous adopted son of Cuba  was Ernest Hemingway.  He lived in Havana for several years  and mostly drank and wrote some of his lesser know books. With his royalty check  purchased Finca Vigia, a one story Spanish colonial house with a great view back to Havana about 10 miles from Havana.  There in a little more peace and quiet, he wrote The Old Man and the Sea, A Movable Feast and For Whom the Bell Tolls.  It is now open to tourists, who like me, come to visit the place where Hemingway lived and wrote .  Havana is full of Hemingway places.  He drank his daiquiris at El Floridita—he also immortalized both the drink and place in Islands in the Stream-- and his mojitos at La Bodeguita del  Medio where he brought the drink  instant fame.  Both clubs continue to trade on Hemingway and you wade through sweaty, rum soaked people and a haze of cigarette and cigar smoke to drink like “Papa” did.  I actually waited in line to see his old hotel  room 511 in the Hotel Ambos Mundos.   The Cubans are still in love with Hemingway.  He is required reading in schools  and Fidel said that For Whom the Bells Toll inspired his guerilla tactics.  Upon his death, his 4^th wife was forced to sign over Finca Vigia and most of the contents to the Cuban government as well as his boat.  Hemingway loved Cuba back and called it his home for 20 years until he had to decide between the US or Cuba.