The night was dense, heavy with salt and foreboding. The Granma yacht rocked furiously on the waters of the Gulf. Almost swallowed by the waves, it barely withstood the weight of dreams and weapons. Those seven days of storm and nausea, combined with a rebellious sea, seemed to conspire against the young expeditionaries led by Fidel Castro.
Finally, an order broke the tension: "Full speed to the coast!" The hull scraped brutally against the mud, coming to a halt 60 meters from the shore. The silence of the engine gave way to collective gasps and the splashing of the first men who jumped into the water just off Los Cayuelos, near Playa Las Coloradas, in the municipality of Niquero.
At that moment, freedom had the cold weight of a rifle, a soaked backpack, and mud rising up the boots. The real test was beginning.
What looked like solid ground from the boat was a treacherous swamp, soft, sucking terrain that refused to let go of its victims. The thick, cold mud clung to their legs, threatening to swallow men and hopes.
They advanced for two eternal hours in the darkness, with water up to their chests, dragging their bodies through that hellish slime. There was no enemy in sight, only the earth itself, rebellious and hostile.
Dawn brought with it a distant hum that soon turned into a roar: the accurate shot of a heavy weapon from the sea. They had been spotted. The Granma yacht, lonely and stranded, was now a sure target.
Then came the bursts from the sky, cutting through the air above the heads of the 82 expeditionaries. Hunger and extreme fatigue were written on every emaciated face, in every trembling muscle.
But in those eyes, embraced by exhaustion, burned a different stubbornness, a promise made flesh, an oath that had survived the shipwreck and now defied the swamp and even the bullets: to be free or martyrs.
On that December 2, 1956, the history of Cuba took on new momentum. From the mud of Los Cayuelos and the unbreakable will of those 82 expeditionaries emerged the Revolutionary Armed Forces, heirs to the mettle of the Rebel Army, guardians of a country that learned to forge its destiny with its own hands.
And from that dawn tinged with gunpowder and mud, the feat began to grow beyond the men who carried it out. It became a seed and a compass, a living legacy for new generations.
