Cuba Photo Trip Slide Night in Santiago de Cuba

Bay of Pigs
by Dianne Campbell

Private box detail in Tomas Terry Theatre, Cienfuegos
by Dianne Campbell

Propaganda billboard
by Dianne Campbell

Havana Queens dancers
Pic by Ian Caldwell

Ian Caldwell showing his Latin charm with a senorita in Trinidad
(no Photoshop involved!)

Cienfuegos charm
Pic by Ian Caldwell

Minute hummingbird
Pic by Ian Caldewell

Enjoying a cigar
Photo by Kerrie Dixon

Cuban fingernails
Pic by Kerrie Dixon

Havana Queens dance action
Pic by Kerrie Dixon

Street artPic by Margo Hoekstra

Portrait of a dancer
Pic by Margo Hoekstra

Typical country scene in rural Cuba
Pic by Margo Hoekstra

Havana Cathedral HDR
Pic by Natalie Hitchens

Friendly butcher in an Agromercado, community market
Pic by Natalie Hitchens

Respray job, Havana
Pic by Natalie Hitchens

Neighbourly tete-a-tete
Pic by Peter Melser

Sitting on the streetPic by Peter Melser

Waiting for the bus
Pic by Peter Melser

Hat seller
Pic by Phil Young

Local musiciansPic by Phil Young

Two girls getting online at the local internet hotspot
Pic by Phil Young

Patriotism
Pic by Sharon Carey

Horse carriage driverPic by Sharon Carey

Iconic American carPic by Sharon Carey

Seed pods
Pic by Sue Caldwell

Tropical flower in the Cienfuegos Botanical Gardens
Pic by Sue Caldwell

Cuban man
Pic by Sue Caldwell

Santeria, an African-Cuban Religion

In Cuba Catholicism is king. The population are about 60% Catholic while the remainder combine some Western religion with an African religion called Santeria.

We visited a Santeria church, an ordinary suburban house full of idols, in Santiago de Cuba. It was full of quite disturbing looking idols: Chango the god of war, Jemaya the god of the sea, Ochun the yellow god of charity, among others.  Here are a few images form that visit (highly compressed because the internet here is woefully slow).

Paladar Guarida - the location for the Film; Freisa y Chocolade

Interesting front entrance.
Like many entrance ways in the capital, the front door speaks of a far grander time.
You can just see a building site at the back of the ground floor.

Strawberries and Chocolate was a Cuban film released in 1995 to great critical acclaim. It was nominated for an Oscar for Best Foreign Film. Most of the scenes were shot in and around this interesting paladar (a paladar is a family run restaurant).
The film is a basic gay love story gone wrong - but what made it all the more interesting is that it was set in the communist-run society of Havana in the 70's, when being different, in any shape or form, was officially frowned upon, if not a serious criminal offence.

The ground and first floors appear to be either under renovation or just a bit derelict

First floor is used by the few residents in this grand old building to dry their washing

The second floor holds a bar and the restaurant.
Food and service were excellent and it had clearly benefitted from being the location of this film

Appetizers...
Eggplant dip, fish taco, pumpkin soup and a stuffed pancake - washed down with a mojito

Colon Cemetery, Havana

(From Wikipedia) "Colon Cemetery is one of the great historical cemeteries of the world, and is generally held to be the most important in Latin America in historical and architectural terms, second is La Recoleta in Buenos Aires. It was built by the Galician architect Calixto Arellano de Loira y Cardoso, a graduate of Madrid’s Royal Academy of Arts of San Fernando, and who became Colón’s first occupant when he died before his work was completed. Yet for all its elegance and grandeur Colon Cemetery conceals as much as it displays. Empty tombs and desecrated family chapels disfigure the stately march of Cuban family memorials even in the most prominent of the avenues, and away from the central cross-streets, ruin. Many of these are the tombs of exiled families, whose problems with caring for their dead have been complicated by residence in new countries.

The first impact of Colon Cemetery is a seemingly endless succession of tombs blinding white in the midday heat, few shade trees and nowhere to sit. In front of the main entrance, at the axes of the principal avenues Avenida Cristobal Colón, Obispo Espada and Obispo Fray Jacinto, stands the Central Chapel apparently modelled on Il Duomo in Florence. On every side rectangular streets lead geometrically to the cemetery’s 56 hectares, designed by Loira to define the rank and social status of the dead with distinct areas, almost city suburbs: priests, soldiers, brotherhoods, the wealthy, the poor, infants, victims of epidemics, pagans and the condemned. The best preserved and grandest tombs stand on or near these central avenues and their axes.

Colon Cemetery has a 75-foot (23 m)-high monument to the firefighters who lost their lives in the great fire of May 17, 1890. As baseball is a leading sport in Cuba, the cemetery has two monuments to baseball players from the Cuban League. The first was erected in 1942 and the second in 1951 for members of the Cuban Baseball Hall of Fame".

HDR sequence of an ornate family vault using Aurora HDR Pro

A Postcard from Hemingway's Havana Residence, Finca Vigia

About 15 kms out of Havana Centro sits Finca Vigia, the house that Hemingway and his wife lived in - up until the revolution

His wife built him this room (up 25 steps) in a tower separate from the house - to get away from the household noise so he could write.
As it happened Hemingway never used this room to write because as soon as he settled up there, in came the several dogs and cats that lived in the house - so he never got any peace!

After he died in the USA, Hemingway's wife returned to Havana and eventually left the home as a museum.
Everything you see (from the open windows - you are not allowed int the house) is as he left it...

One of Hemingway's offices complete with paintings, books (there are over 8000 in the house) and an assortment of stuffed animals - and the bullets used to shoot them on the desk!

Havana's Old Churches

Cathedral of the Virgin Mary of the Immaculate ConceptionGlorious old cathedral in Havana's main (Plaza Catedral) square
(Pic by Natalie Hitchens)

"The Bells, the bells"
 San Francisco church cloisters

Cathedral of the Virgin Mary of the Immaculate Conception
Fabulous door details in the main cathedral
(Pic by Natalie Hitchens)

Inside the Greek church round the back of San Francisco square
(Pic by Natalie Hitchens)

Vaulted ceiling in the cathedral

Cloisters of San Francisco of Assisi church
(Pic by Natalie Hitchens)

Small Greek church near San Francisco square
(Pic by Natalie Hitchens)

HDR scene from inside the old church in Plaza del Christo

Jigsaw panorama taken inside Havana's old cathedral
(set the camera to small JPEG (because the assembled file will be BIG), focus to manual, metering to manual, then shoot multiple images all around you (this was made up from 28 pics) and the software puts it all together. More or less. But you always get an interesting shape around the edges!

View through San Francisco to the cloister beyond

Not sure what this was - it looks like a collection of Bishop's wardrobes!

Quiet and coolness in one of Havana's churches

Inside the Cathedral of the Virgin Mary of the Immaculate Conception

Homestay, Cuban Style

Thanks to a booking mistake I made, we were left with one night unaccounted for this week (the Hotel Raquel where we had been staying for the week was fully booked) so arranged to stay in a Casa Particulares, a Cuban homestay for one night which was a bit of an adventure. This is the tiny living room.

Entrance hallway to the block of apartments on Calle Ygnacio in Habana Viejo, the Old city

Yours truly surveying the passers-by in the street.
The cobblestones were so rough in this area that I lost both wheels on my suitcase.

The electric shower arrangement.
It worked but the apartment, which cost about $45 for a night, was tiny.
You'd knock a cat senseless if it was swung about...

Here's the tiny kitchen (we chose NOT to cook!)
Just big enough for one small person to stand in.
Three huge water tanks were suspended up above in the ceiling.
Overall it was very quite quiet place but the size made us both feel somewhat guilty seeing as we are building a new house with a kitchen/living area that's larger than the entire 'particular'...