Mélange Travel & Lifestyle Magazine January 2018 | Page 203

Dan Lundberg
Small fishing boat in dry dock at the Cojímar Fishing Base, March 2016
In the 1940s and ’50s, Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) liked to hang out (play dominoes, drink rum, tell stories,
go fishing in his boat ‘El Pilar’) with the fishermen in the port village of Cojímar east of Havana. One of the
fishermen, Gregorio Fuentes, was the inspiration for “The Old Man and the Sea.” The fishing base continues
to celebrate its connection to Hemingway - and especially that Hemingway and Fidel Castro met here (the
only time) in May 1960 for a fishing contest held in Hemingway’s honor which Castro won.
© Dan Lundberg