#atozchallenge: K is for Kidnapped

Here's to a great AtoZ!

Join in the FUN.


This year I traveled to Cuba. You know, it's that little island that's spitting distance from Florida and should not be visited without special dispensation. I wanted to see it before MacDonald's arrived. I'm so glad I did. I learned a lot and I met some wonderful people. It seems they like us. Now there's a change!

I'll add a short T/F quiz to each post the same as I did last year about Burma, and I'll post the answers to the questions the following day. 

Answers to your T/F Quiz for J.

FALSE 1. The U.S. doesn't import tons of Cuban sugar each year and hasn't since the embargo in 1960. Cuba can sell to other countries; we don't stop that commerce.

FALSE 2. Rum isn't made from rum berries grown in the Caribbean. It's made from fermented sugarcane (molasses). 


K is for Kidnaped

Juan Fangio at the Grand Prix
In 1958 Juan Fangio, the winner of the World Drivers' Championship five times, was kidnapped from the Lincoln Hotel just before the big race in Havana. Castro guerrillas held him captive until after the race. He always said he was well-treated and never divulged where they held him. 

During the race one car's oil line broke and Cifuentes' Ferrari careened out of control into spectators. Forty people were injured and seven killed. So Fangio's kidnapping may have saved his life. It certainly brought attention to the people's revolution, while frustrating Batista's attempt to show the world how great things were in Cuba.

Today the Lincoln Hotel is a rather seedy run-down place off the Prado, but it does house a small museum in the room Juan Fangio stayed that fateful year.




Your T/F Quiz for K:

1. The first Cuban Grand Prix was held in 1957.
2. Following the successful revolution in 1959, organized motor racing in Cuba ended permanently.


Answers tomorrow.Beware the White Rabbit (Anthology: They Call Me Alice), Leap Books, Summer '15
Sliding on the Edge, C. Lee McKenzie, WestSide Books, Spring '09
The Princess of Las Pulgas, WestSide Books, Fall '10
The First Time, Fall '11 (Anthology story: Premeditated Cat)
Alligators Overhead, Outskirts Press, Fall '12
Two and Twenty Dark Tales (Anthology story: Into the Sea of Dew