Santa Clara the city of ” El Che” Guevara.

In Cuba, when traveling from Havana International Airport to the city of Havana you will see countless paintings and art of the so-called freedom fighter.

But it wasn’t in Havana that El Che made its legacy. It was in the city of Santa Clara, in Central Cuba. So it’s easy to understand why El Che” Guevara’s mausoleum was built here.

Santa Clara is where the Cuban Revolution was made (but not where it started).

The portrait of Che just behind the revolution square in Havana.

Santa Clara was the place where an epic battle was fought on 29th December of 1959. 18 men under Che’s command, armed with rifles, homemade Molotov Cocktails, and a stolen Bulldozer derailed an armored train with 350 soldiers that the current President Fulgencio Batista had sent as reinforcements.

The actual train from the event.

But Che and his men managed to derail and capture all the 350 soldiers on boarding the train, without even firing a single bullet, the train was also transporting a big amount of weapon’s that Che and his men would use later in the Revolution.

Booth the Bulldozer and the derailed train is on display these days in a memorial park in Cental Santa Clara.

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The actual Bulldozer that Che and his men used to derail the train.

There’s a “famous” statue of Che with a kid on his shoulder a few minutes walk from the memorial park, the statue is symbolizing the Che and the future.

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The famous statue of El Che, with the kid on his shoulder.

The Mausoleum is located on the western outskirts of the city, it’s an easy 30-40 min walk between those two places.

The Che Guevara Mausoleum (Mausoleo Che Guevara) was open in October 1997, 3 decades after his death in Bolivia in 9th October 1967.