Fidel Castro's final resting spot revealed

About a year ago, trucks full of building materials began arriving at the Santa Ifigenia cemetery in the eastern Cuban city of Santiago. Yesterday, a white cloth was draped over a new structure near the mausoleum for Cuban independence leader Jose Marti.
Beyond those few clues, the details of Fidel Castro's final resting place were one of the most tightly kept secrets in Cuba.
That ended this morning, when the revolutionary leader's ashes were interred in a private ceremony and shortly afterward the world got a glimpse of a tomb that will immediately become one of the most important sites on the island.

Once the ceremony ended shortly before 9 AM, journalists and Cuban mourners were allowed into the cemetery to see the tomb, a simple round stone about 15 feet high with an emerald-colored plaque bearing Castro's name.
The tomb stood to the side of a memorial to the rebel soldiers killed in an attack that Castro led on Santiago's Moncada barracks on July 26, 1953, and in front of the mausoleum of Cuban national hero Jose Marti.
A dozen uniformed soldiers were standing in front of the stone.

Cuban officials have said nothing about future access to Castro's tomb, but its apparent location alongside Marti's, a grand site heavily visited by tourists and Cubans alike, indicates that there will be continuing of public access to the grave of the man who led Cuba for nearly 50 years and died on November 25 at 90.

"It's a privilege to have him here," said Cruz Maria Pardo, 64, who worked at the cemetery cleaning the mausoleums for more than 20 years and said she had seen trucks bringing in materials for a little over a year.
Thousands if not millions of Cubans have lined the central roadway connecting the island's two largest cities over the last four days, chanting and waving banners as the cedar coffin carrying his remains drove by.
In the country's vast, rural stretches, Cubans packed into buses and tractor trailers, many as part of work or school groups, to wait hours under a blistering sun to say goodbye.

Today, his remains reached Santiago, the city where Castro launched his revolution and where a final, mass gathering in the city's Revolution Plaza was held before his ashes are interred at Santa Ifigenia.
The cemetery is located in the northwestern part of Santiago, about a half-kilometer from the bay. It was founded in 1868 and is the final resting place of some of the most important figures in Cuban history.
Beyond a stately, white building at the entrance lies Marti's large mausoleum, a tower where there is a changing of the guard every half hour.
Nearby stands the memorial to rebels killed in or executed by Batista's forces after the 1953 attack on the Moncada Barracks, Castro's initial, failed attempt to foment revolution.