Cojímar is a coastal area to the east of the capital. A town of fishermen and humble people able to create lasting friendships. That happened to Gregorio Fuentes starting from the moment in which he knew Ernest Hemingway.
The fisherman and the writer were one for the other one. As inseparable as it was from Cojímar that tall and nice man that was telling anecdotes among the residents. He loved so much this place that he qualified it as: "my small homeland."
There, in the rustic dock, people were used to see the yacht ‘El Pilar’, when "Papa" returned to his place in San Francisco of Paula, after the fishery working hours. There, the idea of writing "The Old man and the Sea” began to be forged.
While the wind came from the north he used to taste delicious dishes made with seafood in the so frequented restaurant of the whole region which still exits nowadays with the patronymic of ‘Las Terrazas de Cojímar’.
When a new political-administrative division was created in the country in 1976; Cojímar became to be part of ‘La Habana del Este’ municipality, territory where the most important facilities were built for the XI Pan-American Games carried out in the Cuban capital in 1991.
The 20 000 neighbors of Cojímar know that Hemingway belongs them. His figure honors the park facing the blue sea. The youngest people know his real dimension as a writer; the oldest ones remember his laugh and his jovial character, but perhaps, they don't know that "Jemin" wrote "Farewell to Arms", "The Snow of the Kilimanjaro" or “For Whom the Bells Tolls ?”.
He loved so much this place that he qualified it as: "my small homeland." 
