Fidel in Cayo Cruz 35 years ago

All of Fidel’s tours through Camagüey were unforgettable, but one is particularly alive in the memory: the visit, on a day like today, September 22, 1989 to Cayo Cruz, where the strategy for tourism development of this beautiful region in the north of the province would be drawn.

There he found enviable white sands, like few in Cuba, and a virgin environment populated by iguanas, caleta grapes and other species of flora and fauna when he disembarked from the helicopter that traveled to the place from the capital.

In the Cayo Cruz, before arriving at the house of Suncia and Manolo, the only inhabitants of the environment, he bathed in the place known as El Pino in Punta Cocina, where he made the bend, far from the property of the couple of the Cayo.

He is remembered by those who accompanied him during his stay here, including political leaders of the province, such as the late Lázaro Vázquez García, first secretary, and Manuel Chaos Piedra, member of the Provincial Bureau, that his arrival at the home of Suncia and Manolo did not dress him in olive green, as was usual, but in bathing clothes and with a beard wet with salt water.

As a lover of underwater exploration, he was always accompanied on trips with these purposes, snorkel, flippers and masks, using it this time as he did a while before in Cayo Fragoso and other places that I saw many times from the plane.

In the modest wooden building where the couple used to live, the only residents of Cayo Cruz, Fidel’s conversation with Camagüey's specialists in Physical Planning took place, pioneers of the subsequent outcome of the particular study of the potential of the site for the development of tourism.

Fidel’s strategic vision, although born in 1973, took by surprise the unbelievers who considered an unattainable project, to populate hotels and bungalows, and areas of services...

While a pedraplén would cross the sea, along 43 kilometers, between Jagüey-Romano-Cayo Cruz beach, fruit of the work of the contingent Camilo Cienfuegos, led by engineer Bernardo Nieves.

Unforgivable not remain as a relic of the place theguano ranch roof , where they settled, from the first to the eight of October 1989, the expeditionaries that marked the turn of this place, challenging the corasí and jejenes.

The real estate Almest, assumed name to honor Almeida and Armando Mestre, builders symbols, forces of the Ecot (Construction Company of Works of Tourism), signaled the take-off transformer, to which other entities of support of the electric branches were added, Telephone, hydraulic... to support the necessary insurances for hotel and non-hotel services.

Fidel’s instructions did not fall into a vacuum: taking care of the Alto del Ají, the highest elevation in the area with 42 meters, accelerating the selection and training programs for staff, projects to advance resolutely, without disregarding experiences from the Caribbean area.

Investments for today’s reality marked the execution of a road, technical networks, internal and external roads of the North circuit of Brazil, aqueduct and sewer, electrical technical networks, modern telephone technology and multiple buildings in Jaronu.

In what was called Quebrada 17 emerges the first hotel opened, with the name of Valentín, 546 rooms and 60 in a service center outside the hotel, composed of two housing areas each with six bungalows and a main building with common furniture, ranches, gym and swimming pools.

In total there are four hotels finished with more than one thousand rooms and the project was conceived, in addition to the benefits of the country’s economy, for the inhabitants of Esmeralda, Sierra de Cubitas, Minas and Nuevitas, through the generation of jobs and contacts with other productive sectors such as agriculture.

These are dreams of Fidel that will undoubtedly last in time, with the visit also made the following day, September 23, to other cays of this beautiful geography, interconnected by a vial with Cayo Coco.