El Cobre

"The Basilica de Nuestra Señora del Cobre, 20km northwest of Santiago de Cuba...is Cuba's most sacred pilgrimage site. It all began in 1606 when three fisherman found a wooden image of the Virgin floating on the Báhia de Nipe in northeastern Cuba. It carried a label reading 'I am the Virgen de la Caridad'. The statue was brought to the copper mine at El Cobre and in 1608 the first hermitage was erected. A century later, a larger sanctuary was built, and the present shrine opened in 1927."

"On May 10, 1916, Pope Benedict XV declared the modest image the patron saint of Cuba, and in 1936, it was elaborately crowned during an elaborate ceremony in Santiago de Cuba. Pope John Paul II recrowned the image during his celebrated 1998 visit to Santiago de Cuba. In Santería (the Afro-Cuban religion), the Virgen de la Caridad is associated with the beautiful orisha Ochún, the Yoruba goddess of love and dancing, who is represented by the color yellow. In the minds of many worshipers, devotion for the two religious figures is intertwined."

"The visitor's center contains numerous ex-votos, small objects and mementos left by the faithful to give thanks for some favor bestowed by the virgin....Devotees often leave a small gold pendant representing the bodily (sic) part cured or protected by divine intervention. The most notable of these is a small golden guerilla fighter donated by Lina Ruz, the mother of Fidel Castro, to protect her son during his Sierra Maestra campaign against Batista." Lonely Planet Guide to Cuba

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