The Cuban revolutionary’s funeral procession is retracing in reverse his route to seizing power in Havana. Amid genuine grief mourners also hope for change

The ashes approach. A hundred flags wave, a thousand camera phones click, veterans salute and the chants go up of “Yo soy Fidel” (“I am Fidel”). Then, within seconds, the procession has passed, the crowd breaks up, the roads reopen and people go back to their normal lives.

The scene has been repeated the length of the Cuba over the past three days, as the 900km (560-mile) funeral procession for the island’s rebel commander-in-chief, Fidel Castro, retraces the journey he made in 1959 after arguably the most audacious and inspiring revolution of the 20th century.

Now, as then, the parade is labelled La Caravana de la Libertad (the Caravan of Liberty), but freeing Cuba has come to mean something very different after 57 years of authoritarian one-party rule.

The first major town on the route of the procession is Cienfuegos, an industrial centre that highlights the lofty ambitions, poor execution and bad fortune of the Castro government.

It was near here that Cuba – with the help of technicians from the Soviet Union – attempted to build a nuclear reactor to ease energy shortages and power industrial development.

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Billions of dollars were invested, thousands of workers were employed, but it never generated a single kilowatt of electricity. The project, which started in 1981, was scuppered after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Today, all that is left is a giant hulk of the abandoned reactor – the same model as the one that melted down in Chernobyl – and the nearby “Nuclear City”, a community of Soviet-style tower blocks.

“This was seen as the city of the future in the beginning, but nobody thinks that now, not at all,” said a local shopkeeper. The failure of the project did nothing to dim her affection for the leader who commissioned it. “I cried yesterday. I love Fidel. I’ve been watching his speeches all day on TV.”

History is now in danger of repeating itself. After the Soviets left, Cuba turned to Venezuela for support and energy.

Castro persuaded Hugo Chávez to supply 96,000 barrels of oil a day, most of it processed at the refinery in Cienfuegos. But with Venezuela now in the midst of its own crisis, this has fallen by more than 15% in the past year and more cuts are expected. In July, street lighting was dimmed by 50% and state enterprises were told they must reduce energy consumption by 25%.



Facebook Twitter Pinterest People react as the caravan carrying the ashes of Fidel Castro passes them in Las Tunas, Cuba, on Friday. Photograph: Carlos Barria/Reuters

“There have been interruptions at the refinery,” said Dagmara Quirós, whose family works inside. For her, it was not a big deal; in recent decades, Cubans have grown used to intermittent supplies of fuel, electricity and basic goods. She and her daughter were more concerned about completing a paper chain to drape outside their home, before the funeral procession arrived. “I love Fidel. He’s done a lot for my family,” said Quirós, a hospital cook.



In the city centre, public buildings are draped in giant flags. Houses and businesses have signs and photographs of Castro. The streets are lined with crowds three deep waiting for the procession: medical staff in white, the military in khaki and children in school uniform – some with the word “Fidel” painted on their faces. Education manager María Elena Martínez says this is a historical moment, though she does not expect it to usher in big changes.



“I don’t think there is any Cuban who isn’t sad,” she says. “But even with Fidel gone, there is [President] Raúl [Castro] and then another revolutionary will take over from him.”

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She is not blind to the problems facing her country, and would like the economy to improve. Her monthly salary of 890 pesos (about $35) is higher than average but she says she is still short of everything.

Martínez shrugs at the prospect of renewed tensions with the US, after Donald Trump’s threat to reverse Barack Obama’s diplomatic rapprochement. “We have to fight in this historical time. I am used to that. I was born in 1962 so my whole life has been revolution.”



Castro’s ashes spent Wednesday night at the mausoleum of Ernesto “Che” Guevara in Santa Clara – a final farewell for two comrades-in-arms.

We next catch up with the procession at Sancti Spíritus, a city famed in revolutionary history for one of Castro’s most democratically idealistic speeches, given at 2am in the pouring rain during the original Caravan of Liberty on 6 January 1959 to a huge crowd eager to find out what the nascent revolution would mean for the country.

Castro reassured them that they would not see more of the same oppression they suffered under Fulgencio Batista. “Will we ban freedom of the press? No. Will we ban freedom of association? No!” he thundered in a rhetorical question-and-answer. Seven years later, the same city was the site of mass executions as the communist government battled an insurgency.



Facebook Twitter Pinterest Roberto Garit Photograph: Jon Watts/The Guardian

Supporters say Castro needed to be ruthless to cement his rule. But there were also Cuban casualties overseas as the president took the armed struggle on to the global stage. Roberto Garit, a community leader in Sancti Spíritus, is veteran of battles in Africa, where thousands of Cuban soldiers died fighting colonial and white minority regimes. Castro, he says, is like a father and a brother to him. “The greatest leader, an inspiration to the world.” As the official convoy approaches, he is in an emotional mood. “Listen to the silence,” he says. “I can hear my own heart beating.”



As the ashes reach his position, he waves a flag and yells “Viva Fidel!” (“Long live Fidel!”). Then dozens of his comrades – some standing to attention and saluting –echo back: “Viva Fidel.” It’s a chant they must have uttered thousands of times over the decades, a fervent wish now contradicted – at least materially – by the casket passing in front of their eyes.



To get back ahead of the slow-moving procession, we have to take a detour of close to 100km (62 miles) through the economically stagnant hinterland of the island. The road is rutted. Some of the fields alongside are used for tobacco and sugar cane crops, but most is scrubland. There are more oxcarts and donkey rigs than cars.



Facebook Twitter Pinterest People line the street to watch the funeral procession pass through Camaguey. Photograph: Rodrigo Abd/AP

The next province is Granma, the site of the landing by the boat of the same name that carried Castro and 81 other revolutionaries from Mexico. It was a truly extraordinary expedition: all but 12 of them were massacred in their first encounter with the army of Batista, but Castro went on to build a rebel army in the Sierra Maestra – and then seize power in just three years.

In the city of Bayamo, there are countless billboards and memorials to this history of revolution. But many in the younger generation are more interested in the latest news and gossip in their email inboxes and Facebook timelines. According to official statistics, 30% of people on the island have access to email, much of it through a restricted domestic intranet rather than the world wide web. But wider access is possible from the growing number of Wi-Fi hotspots in every city park, where the benches are now full of people staring at cellphone, tablet and laptop screens.

On Facebook – which is now ubiquitous among students and journalists – an intense discussion this week focused on whether individuals should choose their own way of marking Castro’s death. One widely shared clip was of an accidentally broadcast argument between two newscasters who were disputing whether it was appropriate to open the show with the words “Good Morning”, which might seem too cheery in the current period of mourning.

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In Bayamo’s central park, most people echoed the official line which can he heard on every TV and radio channel in blanket coverage throughout the day. “It’s impossible to get any better than Fidel,” said Beatriz Licea, a medical student, as she checked her email. “He was an incredible man. Very intelligent. Incomparable.”



A more nuanced tone was struck by Lionel Ortega, who moved to the US two years ago and is now back visiting his family. “I’ll go to the procession. Fidel was the greatest president of all time. But he did good things and bad things. I’m neutral. Politics is ugly here, like everywhere,” he said. “I’d like a few less restrictions. If there were a little more liberty in Cuba, this could be the perfect country.”



We arrive in Santiago late at night. This is the city of revolution: many of the biggest battles in the 19th-century war of independence against Spain and the 20th-century revolt against Batista were fought here. The Santa Efigenia cemetery is the resting place of independence hero José Martí. And on Sunday, this is where Castro’s ashes will be interred.



Yet, along with the widespread and mostly genuine grief, some hope this might be a turning point. With the passing of the revolutionary commander-in-chief, Cuba has an opportunity to rebalance the way it looks at the past and the future.

Without forgetting the extraordinary courage of the rebels and the achievements in healthcare and education, there could be less of a fixation on recent history and revolutionary heroics, and more emphasis on economic development, technological advances and political opening.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Children along the funeral route in Cienfuegos. Photograph: Jon Watts/The Guardian

Ask anyone today what they want in the future and the stock response is “a continuation of Fidel’s ideas”. But press a little more about their hopes, and some open up.



Carmen Pérez (whose name has been changed to prevent repercussions) is a black housewife in her 30s, who intends to take her son to the memorial. A child of the revolution, she says she loves Castro as a father but also knows there is a time when children must come out of the shadow of their parents.



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“I’d like to see a lot of changes. I’d like a vote to choose my leader. I’d like a free press and freedom of expression. Now if I say what I think I could go to jail,” she says. “Lots of people think like me, but many pretend to be something they are not. Some of those who cry for Castro are shedding crocodile tears.”



She puts her faith in the next generation of Cuban leaders. Raúl Castro has promised to stand down as president in 2018. The first vice-president, Miguel Díaz Canel, is favourite to succeed him and continue the rule of the Communist party. No alternative is currently allowed.

The pro-democracy movement – much of it in the pay of rightwing Miami exiles – has little scope to campaign, though the opposition Unión Patriótica de Cuba (Unpac) is strongest here in Santiago, ever the contrarian city.

Pérez does not want another revolution. She would prefer a gradual move towards democracy. Her feelings are contradictory, as is often the case for those in mourning.

“I can’t imagine a better leader than Fidel,” she says. “It’s complicated. I love him like a father. But we need change. And that can only happen when there is no Castro in power.”