havana city blog

in 1993, my then girlfriend and now wife and i visited cuba. the massive hotel development that has enveloped much of the beach-lined shores of varadero was only just beginning and so the scene was fairly peaceful. as one feature of our holiday we took a bus into havana.

havana as i saw it at that time was a busy city but a city as you might expect to find in spain or portugal with ornately decorated buildings, wide avenues and small areas of apparent lush wealth. equally present, perhaps moreso, was the obvious lack of wealth. crumbling buildings, dated “modern” structures that had clearly not been maintained, and of course the amazing car museum driving down the streets in smoky, squealing, rumbling splendour!
i haven’t felt any urge to return but i came across a blog recently that has an excellent gallery of photographs of havana. in fairness i should tell you that this is not the tourist version of cuba, but a version taken by someone living there. these are not “clever” or artistic but they are deeply genuine and reveal in their simplicity the experience of being a resident of a once exquisite destination for the wealthy.

i can’t help wondering at the personal and technological lengths the blogger must have to go to to post these photographs of havana . . . .