We head east along National Highway 1 hugging the Caribbean Sea coast and get lost trying to find the statue of the Christ, ‘El Cristo de Habana’ standing majestically on a hill across the bay from the City of Havana.
The inscription written by the artist, Jilma Madera, contains very some very beautiful words worthy of reflection: “ . . . I had a special interest in undertaking a project based on the figure of Christ . . . Christ the man . . . Leader of his time . . . I could manage to make the statue full of energy and firmness, with a face that shows serenity and to be sure of himself. I have managed to create Christ the man…”.
From this vantage point, I can only now fully appreciate this well-planned city of domes, spires, boulevards and parks laid out below me. It truly belongs somewhere in Europe, not on a tropical island in the Caribbean where in better times it was referred to as ‘Pearl of the Antilles’. Edmundo says, “only Buenos Aires in all of South America comes close to Havana but time hasn’t stopped there.