Ricardo Alarcón, one of the top Cuban leaders for years, has said that Obama hit history "helm" on December 17, 2014. That day, the US President acknowledged that the half-century economic blockade was a failure and the way to re-contact Cuba was set in motion. Alarcón would hardly believe it in 2005, when we met him dressed in a txapela on Boulevard de Donostia. “What I would like is to live as long as I can to witness the changes that are going to take place in the world,” he told us on that occasion. And that's it.

“Ricardo Alarcón? Where is that son of a bitch?” Luis has spoken without hesitation while drinking the mojito in a small place located between the streets San Martin and Friendship of the Center of Havana. For him in Cuba there are three good things: health, education and security. Everything else is "shit."

“Obama’s decision, what is a victory for you?”
- Of course!
- The Cuban people?
“No, the victory of the top.

Luis works in a funeral home when he is not talking to tourists. The Basque has friends and friends, the Hernaniarra Joxe Mari Larretxea is his friend and travel companion. “When you write this article, put on a black man who asked you what the Basques think about the relationship between the United States and Cuba.”

The broad sectors and movements of Euskal Herria have long demonstrated great sensitivity towards Cuba. The portal Cubainformacion.tv that has become an important means of breaking the media lock is created by local agents, for example. In December, the Bostak askatu campaign was carried out, an initiative that was approved in 25 municipalities in favour of the five Cuban prisoners who were found to be infiltrated by American anti-revolutionary groups.

They've come back! It says the banner that's hanging in an official building. The cry for the rapprochement of the five prisoners has become an important tool for dealing with imperialism and creating networks of solidarity. That is why the Obama Government’s acceptance of the exchange of prisoners has been understood as a guarantee to end the blockade. In Congress, the leader of the Americans said loud and clear: “In Cuba we are ending polyticy,” but it’s yet to see if the legal architecture of the blockade has enough salt to get rid of.

Hope and prudence

Zulueta Street, which once separated the wall from Havana, looks colorful and upright from the window of the almond or self-propelled artifact that makes taxi. However, at the exit of old Havana, one can guess a city that has suffered five decades of low intensity bombardments.

Don't think so! Many places are being renovated.” Hope is noted in the words of the driver, who read in the Gramma newspaper that the car industry is very interested in entering Cuba. The pressure of economic powers has had to do with the change of attitude of the US administration. Investors are hungry. Some say that when they start emptying the dwellings to re-urbanize the center of Havana, the families who live there will notice that the blockade is over. Hope and prudence: “The old saying goes that the devil will not give you anything, but if they give you, poisoned.”

What for so many years cannot be destroyed, the empire will continue to machinate. But now, at least, the news comes in series. Washington has just speeded up the rigorous licensing of Americans to travel to Cuba, and has also increased the minimum amount to send money to the island from $500 to $2,000. The Central Bank of Cuba, for its part, will issue banknotes of up to 1,000 pesos in order to reduce the difference between the two currencies of the country.

On the eve of San Sebastian was the delegation of Democratic Senators in Havana, where he talked to the ministers of the government of Raul Castro. This visit again raised the possibility of opening an embassy.

Frozen account

Cuba has been the seat of the Empire many years earlier. In the Plaza de Armas of Havana, the Palace of the Major Captains, the house of the governors of Spain, is kept standing. In front of it, blinded, in front of it, black slaves punished the tree. In the early nineteenth century, a temple was built behind him and the subsequent story, promoted by the Bishop of Alavés Díaz de Espada, made him a symbol of freedom. Power on one side, freedom on the other. And in the middle, books.

Federico is a study engineer, but the work is dedicated to selling books. In the park of the Plaza de Armas you can also find valuable history books among the many chronicles of Ché and Fidel. We have located the librarian asking about the work on the sugar trade and the construction of railways. “Do you really want to know what happened? For you do not read the books of now, but the books of capitalism,” he says. And he has listed us the other guerrilla groups and directories that existed besides the July 26 Movement: “They also made the revolution, not just Fidel.”

In this pearl of the Caribbean, in which colonial buildings are gradually being rebuilt, the story of both continues to contain ice beams.