By Ramón Crespo Porbén/ Translated by José Luis Valdés Medina 

It was the nature which made that the Caiguanabo river in its millennial existence perforated, by San Andrés, the Mountain range of Guaniguanico to define in that way the frontier between the Sierra del Rosario and Los Organos.   

Two adjacent caverns are the result of the ancestral desire of the calm current that goes for the lowest of the caves and it reaches the highest one when receiving the most minimum rainfall.    

Discovered in 1800 by a Spanish man that gave it his last name, the Cave of Los Portales was conditioned in 1947 by Manuel Cortina, the owner of an extensive rural property, who appreciating the attractive natural conditions of the cave, used it for his own recreation.    

A day of October of 1962, there Che and his men arrived. In Los Portales cave he installed his  headquarters of stone and courage in the moments in which to the claim of the Homeland, all the people raised their fists for the defense of the definitive independence.    

Those were the days of the October Crisis whose fundamental cause was propitiated by the Yankees with the historical accusations that the Revolutionary Government from Cuba constituted a danger for the continental peace.    

The rocks know about those hours of October and November of 1962. Each group felt his good step and he transmitted the echo of his asthma and the firm voice "that it orders without leading, tender and hard of comrade boss". (1)      

(1) Guillén, Nicolás. Bigger anthology. Hurracain Edition , Book Institute , Havana 1969, page 299. Poem Che Commander.

(ICAP) 05-07-2007