Cojímar

This guide to Cojimar in Havana traces a promise made in the nineteen twenties, when a stranded American writer was towed to shore by a young Cuban fisherman named Gregorio Fuentes. Years later the two recognized each other in a Havana cafe, and Fuentes went on to captain Ernest Hemingway's boat, the Pilar, out of this same harbor for decades, buying a white house here on his captain's wages. Their friendship fed into a famous novel, and critics still argue over who really inspired its old fisherman, though Cojimar never doubted it.