Granma Province

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Granma Province

Country	Cuba
Capital	Bayamo
Area	8,375.49 km² (3,234 mi²)
Population	829,333 (2004)
Density	99 /km² (256 /mi²)

Granma is one of the provinces of Cuba. Its capital is Bayamo. Other towns include Manzanillo (a port on the Gulf of Guacanayabo) and Pilón.

The province was named after the yacht Granma, used by Che Guevara and Fidel Castro to land in Cuba with 82 guerrillas in 1956. The American who sold them the secondhand yacht in Mexico apparently had named it after his grandmother [1] and so the name of this vessel, with its non-standard spelling, became an icon for Cuban communism. Not every Cuban realizes that the name would translate as abuela, although all can name the mothership of the revolution.

As a result, the province is full of reminders of the Cuban Revolution, and the Cuban Wars of Independence, plaques in the mountain commemorating the 1959 struggle against Fulgencio Batista. There are said to be many unmarked grave sites from the different wars. Also unmarked, although there are archaeological "digs", one can find the sites of the various palenques, the fortified hamlets held of escaped slaves. Recently a hurricane destroyed the site of Castro's headquarters at La Plata. There are numerous abandoned gold, silver, and manganese mine sites. This is the area where Raúl Castro holds his centre of power and it is said to be the site of secret garrisons. Coffee is grown in the mountainous regions of the province, and during the coffee harvest, there may be road blocks, where soldiers ensure that the coffee is delivered to the government and not the black market.