HAVANA (AP) — Ernest Hemingway has returned to Cuba… in a way.

Eighteen white-bearded men who resemble the late U.S. author arrived in Havana to visit some of his favorite places when he lived on the island decades ago.

The members of the Hemingway Look-alike Society on Saturday visited the author’s favorite bar in Havana, “El Floridita,” where the music immediately picked up, and tourists and locals gathered around to take photos.

Earlier, they went to the San Francisco de Paula municipality and Finca Vigia, a former home to Hemingway that is now a museum. There, they played baseball with children.

“That is the reason for our visit: the kids and their families,” said Joe Maxey, from Tennessee, who is one of the bearded men honoring the author of “The Old Man and the Sea.”

The look-alikes arrived Friday in Havanawhen they took part in a ceremony at the Hemingway marina in honor of Diana Nyad, the first swimmer to cross the Gulf of Mexico from Cuba to Florida.

Hemingway lived in Cuba from 1939 to 1960.

   Bat Masterson, center, winner of the 2024 “Papa” Hemingway Look-Alike Contest at Sloppy Joe’s Bar in Key West, participates in a baseball game at Finca Vigia, recalling passages from the life and work of 1954 Nobel Prize-winning writer Ernest Hemingway, in Havana, Cuba, Saturday, Dec, 6, 2024. (AP Photo/ Ariel Ley)
  

   A man who pretends to look like the late American writer Ernest Hemingway poses for a photo recalling passages from the life and work of 1954 Nobel Prize-winning writer Ernest Hemingway at La Floridita bar in Havana, Cuba, Saturday, Dec, 6, 2024. (AP Photo/ Ariel Ley)