
{"id":328046,"date":"2025-09-07T10:00:41","date_gmt":"2025-09-07T14:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/?p=328046"},"modified":"2025-09-12T08:20:06","modified_gmt":"2025-09-12T12:20:06","slug":"matias-perez-an-ascent-in-havana","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/cuba\/matias-perez-an-ascent-in-havana\/","title":{"rendered":"Mat\u00edas P\u00e9rez: An ascent in Havana"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">In my father\u2019s library there is a very old, carefully bound magazine that caught my attention. Its title and information are: <\/span><i><span data-contrast=\"auto\">Archivos del Folklore cubano<\/span><\/i><span data-contrast=\"auto\">, Fernando Ortiz, Volume IV, Havana, Cuba, 1929. I looked in the index and found one of his articles on a topic still remembered among Cubans today: \u201cMat\u00edas P\u00e9rez. <\/span><span data-contrast=\"auto\">Personaje Folkl\u00f3rico\u201d (Mat\u00edas P\u00e9rez. A Legendary Figure,\u201d by Herminio Portell Vil\u00e1.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">Then I remembered Bolo\u00f1a\u2019s <\/span><i><span data-contrast=\"auto\">Muestrario del mundo<\/span><\/i><span data-contrast=\"auto\"> (World Sample Book) or <\/span><i><span data-contrast=\"auto\">Libro de las maravillas<\/span><\/i><span data-contrast=\"auto\"> (Book of Wonders), compiled from the catalog of Don Severino Bolo\u00f1a. My father wrote this book when we lived in Arroyo Naranjo, in 1967. He cut out the vignettes and placed them on the page. It\u2019s a curious collection of poems that younger generations no longer know, and it contains poetry and short prose texts.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">Among the vignettes he found was one of a hot air balloon, and Dad decided to pay a small tribute to the daring Portuguese man, a professional awning man (\u201cthe king of awnings,\u201d they called him), whose story always impressed him.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<figure style=\"width: 912px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/matiaseditado-912x1366.jpg\" alt=\"Photo: Author\u2019s personal archive.\u00a0\" width=\"912\" height=\"1366\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo: Author\u2019s personal archive.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">In his short but exhaustive article, Portell Vil\u00e1, a great Cuban historian of the last century, tells us:<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">\u201cThe first ascent in Cuba in a hot air balloon was on March 19, 1828, by the aeronaut Eugenio Robertson and his wife Virginia. A few years later, on January 31, 1831, Domingo Blin\u00f3 made another successful ascent\u2026. Several years later, on March 1, 1856, Mr. Phillip Godard, an expert aeronaut who was in Havana with his wife, made a balloon trip with great ease. His balloon took off from Campo de Marte, rose to 12,000 feet, and touched down in Cotorro after 48 minutes of flight. Mr. Godard made up to six more ascents. Many accompanied him on these trips, among them Mat\u00edas P\u00e9rez.\u201d<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">Portell Vil\u00e1 continues by recounting that Mat\u00edas P\u00e9rez, who seemed to have a true fascination for flight and was somewhat adventurous, felt he had learned enough to move from passenger to pilot and proposed to Mr. Godard to buy his balloon, called <\/span><i><span data-contrast=\"auto\">Villa de Paris<\/span><\/i><span data-contrast=\"auto\">, with all its accessories, for $1,200. On June 12, 1856, he made his test flight, which ended without incident, in the Cerro neighborhood.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">Mat\u00edas P\u00e9rez became very popular for his daring exploits and became known throughout the island. He wanted to break records for duration, flight length and altitude, like those in Europe, and his flights aroused great enthusiasm. The flights took off from Campo de Marte, today Fraternidad Park.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">On July 29 (other sources claim it was June 29), 1856, Mat\u00edas P\u00e9rez set the date for an ascent, announced \u201cwith great fanfare.\u201d He would depart in the afternoon from the Campo de Marte, as was customary, and he intended to break several records. The weather was not good, there was a lot of wind and the flight had to be postponed for several hours, but Mat\u00edas P\u00e9rez, stubborn and reckless, decided to go ahead.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">\u201cFrom the fragile basket of his balloon, he gave the orders to release it, unloaded some ballast and the aerostat quickly rose until it disappeared into the clouds, on that fateful journey from which it would never return,\u201d Portell Vil\u00e1 recounts.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">My brother Rapi, like our father, was impressed by this story: that obsession, that tenacity to achieve a dream even at the risk of one\u2019s own life. And he created a kind of graphic prehistory of an imaginary Mat\u00edas P\u00e9rez as a child, which he titled <\/span><i><span data-contrast=\"auto\">Mat\u00edas P\u00e9rez en busca del viento<\/span><\/i><span data-contrast=\"auto\"> (Mat\u00edas P\u00e9rez in Search of the Wind).<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">The first two drawings show a boy in a forest, trying to catch the wind. Although the drawings are just that, they convey a mystery, a strange anguish. I don\u2019t keep them; they\u2019re in Mexico. I\u2019ve had the other one in my room for years. It shows a very sad boy, holding a balloon in his hand, and the string holding it up looks like it\u2019s about to break.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<figure style=\"width: 1007px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/matiasperez2-Editado-1007x1366.jpg\" alt=\"Photo: Author\u2019s personal archive.\u00a0\" width=\"1007\" height=\"1366\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo: Author\u2019s personal archive.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">I accompany this work with that drawing, the Bolo\u00f1a vignette and my father\u2019s text.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">***<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;335551550&quot;:2,&quot;335551620&quot;:2}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b><span data-contrast=\"auto\">An ascent in Havana<\/span><\/b><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><i><span data-contrast=\"auto\">By Eliseo Diego<\/span><\/i><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">Mat\u00edas P\u00e9rez, Portuguese, a professional awning man, who was in the vast airs that you went for them, Portuguese, with such elegance and haste. In magnificent verses you said goodbye to Havana\u2019s young ladies, and then, one afternoon when the weather was raging, mocking prudence, and while the military band thundered on the Campo de Marte, you flew up into the air, an avid Portuguese, an Argonaut, leaving behind your umbrellas and handkerchiefs, higher still, to the region of transparent solitude.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">How far away the tiny rooftops of Havana seemed, and your six bodies higher than its towers and palm trees, how you flew with the fury of the wind, Portuguese, that last afternoon!<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">And when, at the mouth of the river, having been swept far below by that same fury of the air, the prudent fishermen called to you, shouting to you to come down, that they would look for you in their boats, did you not answer, frenzied Portuguese, throwing your last burdens over the fragile side?<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">There you went, Mat\u00edas P\u00e9rez, Argonaut, toward the sad, leaden clouds, first skimming the enormous waves of the eternal other, and then higher and higher, while you threw everything overboard, on your lips a foam too bitter!<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">Bold, impetuous Portuguese, where did you go with that unbridled impatience out to sea, leaving us only this expression of ironic disenchantment and Cuban sadness: he went like Mat\u00edas P\u00e9rez!<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">Fleeing swiftly toward a glory too transparent, toward a glory made of pure air and nothingness, through which your balloon was lost like a little cloud of snow, like a seagull now motionless, like a point already itself transparent: he went like Mat\u00edas P\u00e9rez!<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My brother Rapi, like our father, was impressed by this story: that obsession, that tenacity to achieve a dream even at the risk of one\u2019s own life. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3552,"featured_media":328049,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13902,13912],"tags":[19256,34937,35034],"ppma_author":[35037],"class_list":["post-328046","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cuba","category-cuban-history","tag-featured","tag-history-of-cuba","tag-matias-perez"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Mat\u00edas P\u00e9rez: An ascent in Havana | OnCubaNews English<\/title>\n<meta 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