SANTA CLARA: Fidel Castro’s ashes were taken on Thursday to a symbolic reunion with his fallen comrade-in-arms Ernesto “Che” Guevara in Santa Clara, the first stop in the late Cold War titan’s last trip across Cuba.

After two days of tributes in Havana, hundreds of thousands of flag-waving Cubans lined the streets to bid farewell as a military jeep began a four-day journey on Wednesday morning with the cedar urn in tow.

Crowds chanted “I am Fidel!” as the convoy started retracing the victory tour that Castro’s guerrilla took in 1959 to celebrate their defeat of US-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista.

The flag-covered urn, which rested under a glass case on a small olive-green trailer, arrived in Santa Clara after midnight and entered a complex with a mausoleum and museum dedicated to Guevara.

“It’s a historic meeting, two comandantes who change the history of Cuba and humanity,” said Agnier Sanchez, a 33-year-old medical imaging technician.

A somber guitar, song and dance show played across a giant statue of Guevara as the “caravan of freedom” paused a third of the way into its 950-kilometre trek across the island.

Published in Dawn, December 2nd, 2016