Cuba - Lonely Planet [266]
Aside from swashbuckling independence hero Ignacio Agramonte, Camagüey has produced several local personalities of note, including poet and patriot Nicolas Guillén and eminent doctor Carlos J Finlay, the man who was largely responsible for discovering the causes of yellow fever. In 1959 the prosperous citizens quickly fell foul of the Castro revolutionaries when local military commander Huber Matos (Fidel’s one-time ally) accused El Líder Máximo of burying the Revolution. He was duly arrested and later thrown in prison for his pains.
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CAMAGüEY STREET NAMES
To make things even more confusing, locals doggedly stick to using the old names of streets, even though signs and maps (including those in this book) carry the new names. Here’s a cheat sheet:
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Loyally Catholic Camagüey welcomed the Pope in 1998 and in 2008 it was declared a Unesco World Heritage Site.
Orientation
The irregular street layout makes getting around Camagüey as confusing to visitors as it was to pirates. Luckily, friendly Camagüeyanos are used to baffled travelers asking the way and they’ve recently put up a series of easy-to-decipher billboards that map out the best historical walking routes.
The train station is on the northern side of town, and several inexpensive hotels are clustered nearby. The city’s north–south axis is República, which meets Av Agramonte at the historic La Soledad church. Most of the other hotels, churches and museums are just southwest of the church, in the city center. The Río Hatibonico crosses the southern side of the city center, and the main bus station is on Carretera Central, about 3km southeast of the river.
Information
BOOKSTORES
Librería Antonio Suárez (Maceo btwn General Gómez & Plaza Maceo) Carries a large selection of books in Spanish.
Librería Ateneo (República No 418 btwn El Solitario & San Martín)
INTERNET ACCESS & TELEPHONE
Etecsa Telepunto (República btwn San Martin & José Ramón Silva; internet access per hr CUC$6)
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THE DISAPPEARANCE OF CAMILO CIENFUEGOS
With a bushier beard than Fidel’s and a countenance as rugged as a handsome Hollywood cowboy, Camilo Cienfuegos cut a dashing figure when he marched triumphantly into Havana atop a horse in 1959. Had he lived, Cuban history might have been very different.
Born into a humble Havana family in 1932, Camilo was an unremarkable youth who dropped out of art school in his late teens to work in a tailor’s shop. In 1953 he traveled with a friend to the US where he drifted for a time between New York, Chicago and San Francisco working as a waiter and dishwasher. Deported for visa irregularities in 1955, Cienfuegos returned to Cuba where he was shot in the leg and hospitalized during an anti-Batista demonstration in Havana. The revolutionary spark was inauspiciously lit.
By the time the Revolution triumphed in 1959, Cienfuegos’ iconic status and meteoric rise largely paralleled that of Che Guevara. Like the Argentine, he had been a late addition to the Granma expedition, allegedly only being allowed to board the boat in Mexico due to his exceedingly lean physique. Surviving the debacle of the rebels’ initial disembarkation, he escaped into the mountains in a party that included Juan Almeida and Che. Nadie se rinde aquí (No one surrenders here), he is said to have shouted at the height of the chaos.
Cienfuegos quickly attained the rank of Comandante in the Sierra Maestra and was instrumental in the final rebel victory in Las Villas province in December 1958. Leading the victory parade west, he was the first rebel commander to enter Havana, a few hours before Che and a full week before Fidel.
Along with Fidel, Raúl and Che Guevara, Camilo was considered one of the four great icons of the Cuban Revolution and his image is still omnipresent on billboards and photographs throughout the island. Though never ostensibly communist, he was always fiercely loyal to the Castro brothers and risked his life many