Cuba - August 2003

quite to the surprise of my older self, i bought a 25 exposure disposable camera in a drug-store and developed the pictures in the same drug-store straight to digital format. there go the last shreds of my photography snobdom.

click on the images for a full view

the first picture of the malecon, taken minutes after arriving from the airport. a very first impression of sorts.

"dear imperialists! we have absolutely no fear of you!" - the first propaganda streetsign out of many i was about to spot in cuba. quite adorable this one, actually. turns out to be a famous one as well.

somewhat silly picture. packing in new york i got an oddly shaped wound on the back of my hand, that looked like two hearts leaning towards each other. how romantic.

colonial desk with some cuban artifacts that we used a lot. i guess it was supposed to transmit some of the mood, but failed horribly. fun fact: cigarettes are called "cigarros" in cuba, whereas cigars are called "tobacco".

The playa ancon just off trinidad. "welcome to the carribean".

these cars (this one in trinidad). they're so hard to not photograph, it's become quite the obsession as the following pictures will attest.

a woman just outside the internet cafe is doing the cuban thing and selling stuff out of her doorstep.

some more business enterprise a la trinidad de cuba: the market at the end of the main street. all the rice, beans and garlic you can eat in one sitting. not much else.

still in trinidad: the beautiful and oft-photographed main square and church.

the view from the roof of the "museum for the struggle against the bandits". quite a reward for those patient enough to make their way through the exhibition.

the living room of our colonial casa in sancti spiritus.

sancti spiritus. my favorite place in cuba, even though (or maybe just because) there's nothing really to see there - except faded original 35mm print 60ies french comedies.

The sign for the local mercado/beer garden. Notice the intense opening hours: 11:30am to 1pm. now this is labor rights for you! sancti spiritus.

sancti spiritus still. seis banderas? I'm not sure if this artist paid all the appropriate royalties to Disney, even though this is hardly a precise rendering of the characters. i guess you can just add a couple of more dollars to the tab cuba has in the u.s.

yet another car. yet another alley. still in sancti spiritus.

this is right in the middle of nowhere, a place called cabaiguan. so remote and desolate that even dogs get a tax cut for just living there. we transited on our way to remedios. this is the local illegal "taxi" station. will get you to the next human settlement for 15 pesos (approx. 60 cents). on this particular trip we used 5 different means of tranportation, from horse carts through bikes to back of vans with garden chairs inside, just to travel some 60 miles. incidentally, this is my wallpaper at time of writing.

the bus/taxi terminal in remedios. thank god we're out of there. the long journey to havana started here.

shelly is larger than life. or to be more precise, larger than dr. ernesto che guevara. this huge statue is on top of a museum in santa clara, a town we went to just for that museum, only to find out that it was closed for renovation. hasta la victoria siempre!

back in havana, yet another patriotic mural just off the malecon around lealtad (the streed we lived in). the captions read: "long live a free cuba" (possibly: "long live rum and coke") - and "welcome fellow countrymen"

ah, finally, the dream car. old, well-kept and on a contrasting background. note the party office and mural of che, camilo and flag in the background.

pio leyva from buena vista social club (the one playing dominos and doing the backing vocals in the film) live in the hotel nacional de cuba, where once all the mafiosos and hollywood stars would lodge. saw some of the most disturbing tans on some european tourists that night.