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Juan Carlos I became estranged from his family.
His wife Sofía did not go into exile
Photo:
Europa Press / Getty Images
Everyone loves him on this day in Cuba.
Even the revolutionary leader Fidel Castro warmly welcomes the Spanish king at Havana airport.
Later, when Juan Carlos is walking through the old town with his entourage, the residents applaud from the windows and balconies, and sometimes the sounds of "Long live Spain" and "viva el Rey".
Construction workers shake his hand.
A street sweeper gets kisses from him on the cheeks.
"Never in my life would I have dreamed of something so wonderful," the worker then tells the accompanying journalists, who back then, in November 1999, I was one of them.
The Spanish king had come to Havana for a summit meeting of the Ibero-American heads of government and state.
He was 61 and enjoyed the height of his international recognition.
People at home also valued him, regardless of whether they chose left or right.
I had to think of that day when an Internet newspaper recently showed the Spaniards completely different pictures: An old man, his face hidden behind a corona mask, leans heavily on the railing of the gangway of a private plane.
That carried him from the far northwest of his kingdom to another continent.
Juan Carlos I, 82, now abdicated king, had turned his back on his country, beaten with illness and contempt of many of his compatriots because of various scandals, laughed at by half the world.
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