! The bearded are going to pass! It was the voice that ran from mouth to mouth. Batista had fled. The Rebel Army entered triumphantly into Santiago; in Havana a coup d'etat was forged. Fidel Castro, from the eastern capital, gave precise instructions to Camilo and Che to enter Columbia and Ciudad Libertad and called a general strike to avoid the coup.
Despite the propaganda against to distort the role of the rebels in the Sierra Maestra, the people knew of them, knew of Fidel and the fairness of the fight, they saw in those men the hope to solve the evils of the government.
The bearded men had been idealized in the people, they were synonymous with good, courage, altruism, hope, so when it was learned that in a giant caravan would travel throughout Cuba from East to West, people went to the villages to receive them and the Central road to see them pass by.
They left Santiago on January 2, Fidel Castro at the front as in every fight. They arrive at Bayamo at night, the Commander in Chief speaks to the people, they continue to Holguin, the three in the morning they enter the city where they are received by the crowd and continue the march until outside the city, in direction of Las Tunas, where the barracks of the Batista regiment already surrendered to rebel influence.
There the leader speaks to the guards, disconcerted by what was coming and then decide to spend the night in the place known by Brisas de Yareyal near the fortified barracks, the four in the morning the march continues.
Buenaventura barely was a country village with few houses and some shops on both sides of the main Cuban artery, on all sides of this and in the neighborhoods near it people mobilized, in this territory the Fourth guerrilla Front troops had been operating for months, many of these peasant families had collaborated with them or provided assistance in one way or another to the cause.
Musicians of the organs gathered before the municipal house of culture today and during the passage of the bearded people played, to the rhythm of this musical instrument, the national anthem receiving as a reward the victorious greeting of those brave soldiers who returned from the battlefield with all the honor and glory on his shoulders.
Little time remained on our soil that troop on the way to the capital, enough time for our people of that time to offer him signs of respect, gratitude, affection, and infinite faith, they knew that they would make their dreams of a better homeland come true.
Fifty nine years later, the passage of the freedom caravan continues to be in the memories of those who, on January 4, 1959, had the opportunity to see them pass, and in the hearts of several generations who, thanks to them, have been able to live in a free and sovereign country.
