Art plays a key role in Cuban life. Maybe it serves to mitigate the ugliness of cratering buildings or uncollected trash piles in the streets, but the tile work, carved iron, and graffiti provide an exuberant distraction from all that is not pretty in Havana. Their artistic talent is remarkable.
Walking down the short alley dubbed Callejón de Hamel immerses you in colorful art celebrating Afro-Cuban culture. Many of the sculptures are crafted from found objects — like bathtubs! On the weekends, musicians and rumba dancers liven up this compact space.
Cubans tell stories through their graffiti. Some pieces look angry, some romantic, some joyous. But it is everywhere — helping you look past the poverty and destruction of this once-elegant city.
Many of the works are very edgy and defy categorization, unless maybe you’re Cuban.
More later about the remarkable contrasts of this fascinating city.
I spent the better part of this afternoon reviewing the images from my camera in preparation for catching up on this blog on Cuba. Usually I organize my posts according to the itinerary we’re following, but this Cuba experience calls for something different, as my photos naturally group themselves more by subject.
But to finish out our excursion to Viñales, here are a few more images of the lovely town and farm.
And the private botanical garden with its gigantic staghorn ferns and Monstera.
Cigar rolling. We dipped the mouth end of the cigar in honey for a milder flavor.
Another three hours on the bone-jarring highway and we were back in Havana for a nice dinner at nearby Donde Lis, where I had the enormous Cuban version of fried rice and croquetas with blue cheese.
Imagine one of the most turbulent flights you’ve ever experienced, then imagine it going on for three hours, and you’ll begin to get an idea of how bad the major roads are in Cuba. By the time we got to the (very nice) rest stop, I felt like my teeth were jarred loose.
Our destination today is Viñales. Our route took us through Pinar del Rio, with its large collection of Soviet-era apartment blocks. Brutalist architecture, for sure.
Viñales, by contrast, is a tidy, charming town featuring colorful colonial-era wooden houses facing a vibrant main thoroughfare dotted with shops and restaurants.
Sady took us to a private botanical garden created by one of the local residents.
Viñales was settled by people from the Canary Islands, who dreamed of planting vineyards, hence the name. But the climate and terroir weren’t conducive to cultivating grapes, so over time other agriculture took root, as it were. Now the region is known for growing tobacco. The area is situated in mountains made primarily of karst outcroppings and dotted with sinkholes and caves.
Lunch was at a farm in the national park, with all the tasty food coming from the gardens and butchery. I partook of a special house drink with a touch of Havana Club. It was like a milk shake, and so tasty.
After lunch we were treated to a cigar-rolling demonstration and were cajoled into having a smoke.
The iconic Cuban cigar man.
Our guide, Colby, has been to Havana many times. I can’t tell you how many people stopped him on the street and greeted him like a long-lost friend. Could be because he’s very tall — 6’3 or 4, with an engaging way about him. Anyway, people seem to want to serenade him!
It was really cold today — only in the fifties, with strong gusty winds. When we went out this morning, the streets were deserted and Sady was miserable! They just don’t get temperatures like this. Of course, there’s a hard freeze predicted for south Florida, so….
We visited the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes and saw some disturbing installations. Melanie, a retired art teacher, was in her element.
A traditional Cuban lunch cost $21 for the five of us. Food is very cheap here. Last night Jane and I shared delicious grilled octopus, Melanie had ropa vieja (shredded beef with rice) and Colby had lobster and the cuenta came to $60, including some yummy flan. They love US dollars here.
Tomorrow we’re leaving town for a trip to Viñales, snuggled in the mountains west of Havana, where they grow tobacco. A welcome change of scenery.
Overcast skies threatened our plan for the day, which was to explore Old Havana and be squired around in 50s-vintage cars. First stop was Fusterlandia, in Jaimanitas, a quiet neighborhood in the western part of the city.
Reminiscent of Parc Guell in Barcelona, with a nod to Picasso, seemingly every surface is covered with mosaics. The artist José Fuster began the project some twenty years ago, festooning his own house with fanciful tiled designs in kaleidoscopic colors. His whimsical creations spilled out into the surrounding neighborhood, creating a visual feast that defies description.
Unfortunately, you’ll have to wait for the dozens of images I captured, as I came without the critical dongle that allows me to download the photos from my camera to my iPad (and I left my laptop at home as well). So unless my new friend Jane’s dongle works, all the images for the next few days will be from my phone.
Later in the afternoon we piled into two bright and shiny 1950s-era taxi convertibles, clearly the pride of their owners, but the ride was cut short by a torrential downpour.
Angry waves crashed against the Malecón, the sea wall stretching eight kilometers along Havana Harbor. More dramatic images to follow.
A bit about my group. Our leader, Colby, looks to be in his forties and lives with his wife and son in the Poconos when he isn’t jaunting around the world running photography tours. Melanie, a fairly recent widow about my age and an ex-pat from South Africa, lives in Hollywood, Florida; and Jane, a bit younger, is from San Francisco and is third generation Japanese. They’ve both been on multiple trips with Colby and have traveled extensively beyond that.
We have a charming guide, Sady, born and bred in Cuba and mother to a six year-old daughter. She has never been off the island! Her husband emigrated to the US for work shortly after their daughter was born, and lives in Houston. She went through the arduous process to emigrate herself, but was denied when the US government contended she was a communist. Not true, said Sady — she never even flirted with the idea. It’s very sad that the family has to live apart, though her husband is able to visit on occasion. She’s been sharing valuable insights into the everyday lives of the Cuban people.
Conditions here aren’t good, but the situation on the ground is not nearly as bad as the hysterical accounts in the US press declare them to be. We’re staying in a comfortable casa, with good WIFI and reliable electricity, thanks to a generator. The power failed for a short while this afternoon, but it didn’t inconvenience us.
There’s a real contrast between what you see on the streets — crumbling buildings, pavement mostly potholes — and some of the elegant government buildings and villas that survived the revolution or have been restored. Despite everything, the Cuban people love Americans (except for one) and are unfailingly warm and welcoming. It’s just a shame that in their 1959 revolution they traded one corrupt and repressive regime for what would turn out to be another. Still, graffiti proclaiming Siempre Fidel is everywhere.
I’m finally back on the road after a pretty long hiatus. Today I’m with a very small group of photographers— only three of us — plus our leader, and we’re in Miami awaiting our flight to Havana. I’ll post as I can, but don’t know how the power situation will be. They have outages nearly daily. Our leader assures us we’ll be fine, as the casa where we’re staying has a generator and good WIFI. If you don’t hear from me during the next week you’ll get the full story when I get back.
So many people on the flight had multiple large bags — many of them just giant plastic bags secured with duct tape — that ours didn’t make it onto the flight. So we had to wait for the next flight. The reason for all the bags is people bringing stuff home to Cuba, things they can’t get at home.
Eventually we were able to leave the airport and meet up with our lovely guide, Sady. A circuitous trip through Old Havana, down streets in desperate need of repair, delivered us to our casa, a beautiful home on a relatively quiet street, owned by the gracious Madeleine, who supplies ample quantities of filtered water, strong WIFI and a generator. Here’s the living/dining room.
After settling into our rooms we walked a few blocks to Frente, a lively restaurant with a quiet rooftop where we dined. I had three delicious tacos mixtos, along with a ginger mojito — yum! Here are a few images from my phone today, some from the neighborhood.
The contrast between the homes, offices and businesses and some of the newer marble-clad buildings is remarkable. They use all manner of transportation here, including tuk-tuk taxis.
More walking tomorrow with my real camera. But for now, sleep!
After breakfast on Friday we decamped to the Sonora Desert Museum to photograph raptors in free flight. My pals are very experienced in identifying and photographing birds, but I know nothing, so my expectations were modest. Despite never having done this before, I was thrilled to be able to capture a few species, some in flight, and ended up with a few decent images. This Cara Cara looks like he’s wearing a toupée! We dubbed him the used car salesman.
A great horned owl was very accommodating, holding a dignified pose.
Camouflaged in the brush, he’s barely visible, with Mexico in the background.
The Harris’ Hawk is quite the hunter, and he buzzed the crowd en route to snagging a small animal for lunch. He was also a vain poser!
The Desert Museum has much else to recommend it as well: a myriad of cactus species, an aquarium, a butterfly garden, a mountain lion named Cruz (who refused to emerge from his nap), two sleepy wolves and a lethargic lizard. Yes, those butterflies below are mating!
After our morning in the hot sun, we visited my friend Cheri, who made us a delicious lunch on her breezy patio. As I expected, the three of them hit it off famously, and I hope they’ll cultivate their new friendship over shared interests.
I didn’t expect to find wetlands in Tucson, but Sweetwater was a lovely, serene spot to watch ducks, coots and a little piping fellow whose name I forget.
For a change of pace, on Saturday afternoon we followed Cheri’s recommendation and sought out the Mini Time Machine Museum, a fascinating collection of over 500 dollhouses and roomboxes. The detail was just exquisite: if you didn’t know these were miniatures, you’d think from the photos they were full-sized. I was amazed at the fabrics, laces, chandeliers and wall art in these rooms, the minuscule titles etched on the book spines and the labels on the foodstuffs in the general store.
Sunday morning was cooler than usual, perfect for a last walk in the neighborhood. It seemed that the cacti burst into bloom overnight.
Such a lovely trip! I was so grateful to see my friends Jen, Marsha and Cheri again, and play with our cameras together. And so home I went, anxious for another adventure.
Brown and grey dominate the color palette of Connecticut in March, and the weather is fickle: it can be near 70 one day and the next barely reach 40. So when two friends suggested a few days in Tucson, I jumped at the chance. These dear friends are fellow photographers, and we hadn’t seen each other since before COVID; our last trip was to Death Valley in February, 2020. Another fellow photographer also lives in Tucson, and our last trip together was to Provence in 2022 . Though all of us have taken trips with the same photographer leader, my three other pals didn’t know each other, so I thought this would be a great opportunity for them to meet.
The warm, dry air embraced me as I deplaned, and the vibrant blue sky promised several days of fair weather ahead. If you love sun, Tucson is a good bet, since they enjoy 340 days of it a year — though I’m not sure “enjoy” is the right word for their blistering summers.
Our adventure began with a stroll around Old Tucson, the picturesque heart of the city, where art is on display in myriad forms, from cactus gardens to weathered doors to murals on adobe walls. After an uninspiring winter, it was good to dust off my camera!
In the Botanical Garden, our next stop, there were abundant signs of impending cactus bloom. To live out here demands learning a whole new category of flora: barrel cactus, rabbit ears, agave, prickly pear (I never knew the pads were purple), cholla, organ pipes, aloe — and a variety of others too numerous to mention.
A couple of years ago, some of my sorority sisters from college got together for a little reunion in Indianapolis. We had so much fun that we went to New York City last fall (see may post about that), and this year rented the same huge house to get together again. We had a wonderful time pretending we were young again, playing Euchre, drinking wine, visiting an immersive Salvador Dali exhibit at the Newfield Museum and having a feast with other sisters who live in the area but didn’t stay with us.
On the way home I took a detour to visit Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater, a place I’ve wanted to visit for many years. It’s tucked into the Laurel Highlands, a lovely spot in the Allegheny Mountains.
Designed as a weekend retreat for the wealthy Kaufman family, who owned the department store bearing their name, it was built in 1935 and is now a World Heritage Site. When the Kaufmans first purchased the land, they made it into a summer camp that could be enjoyed by department store employees. But with the Depression putting a cramp on leisure time, the family decided to build their dream retreat in the woods where they loved to hike. The house is built over Bear Run, and a waterfall adds a unique design element to the home.
Wright’s entryways are often referred to as compress and release, and Fallingwater’s is classic.
Inside, most of the furniture is built-in, consistent with Wright’s custom.
Fallingwater’s kitchen (above) was as forgettable as all the Wright kitchens I’ve ever seen. Below, Edgar Kaufman and his hiking stick.
As it turns out, Fallingwater is an apt name, as water leaks into the house through the reinforced concrete beams.
A short distance down the road is Kentuck Knob, another home designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and built in 1956 for the Hagen family, also of Pittsburgh, who made their money in ice cream. This single-story structure sprawls across the top (knob) of a hill overlooking a panoramic view of the Highlands.
Built of limestone slabs like Fallingwater, it is trimmed in Tidewater red cypress from North Carolina.
Open skylights above the wraparound porch create hexagonal patterns on a sunny day, and allow for cute piles of snow in winter. No photos were allowed inside, but I was impressed with the 28-foot long built-in sofa. The current owners spend 4-6 weeks there in the summer, which probably accounts for the no-photos rule.
By the 1950s, Wright was signing his work…
A winding woodland trail marked by large sculptures leads from the house back to the visitor center.
At the edge of the knob, the trees give way to a panoramic vista of the rolling hills of the Highlands.
The current owner is British, which informs some of the interesting artifacts around the site.
All in all, well worth an extra two days added to my journey.
While reviewing this blog in preparation for a presentation, I realized I never finished! Better late than never!
Upon returning to the city, we took in Coptic Cairo, a part of Old Cairo that contains many historical sites, including the Hanging Church, the Babylonian Fortress, the Greek Church of St. George and many other historic buildings. Christian tradition holds that the Holy Family took refuge in the Saints Sergius and Bacchus Church during their flight into Egypt. All of these structures date to the 7th and 8th centuries A.D.
The old bazaar in Cairo is everything you could imagine from an Indiana Jones movie: a tangle of shops offering all manner of merchandise, from prayer rugs to hanging lamps to unique quilts to pottery.
The Egyptian Museum is like Cairo’s attic, stuffed with more artifacts than you can imagine. Unlike the National Museum, there seems to be no logical order to the exhibits; nevertheless, there are important items here such as King Tut’s burial mask and treasures from his tomb. They’re constructing a new and better home for the hundreds of thousands of artifacts, the Grand Egyptian Museum in Giza.
And speaking of Giza, we wrapped up our tour with a visit to the Pyramids. I had been under the mistaken impression that they were out in the desert somewhere, but no: they rise up from a field within the Cairo city limits.
The Great Pyramid is believed to be about 4500 years old, and took over 20 years to construct. Contrary to popular belief, the Pyramids were not built solely by slave labor. The sophisticated construction techniques called for highly skilled labor, and it was considered a badge of honor to help build the structures. The Great Pyramid (aka Khufu’s Pyramid) alone is made of 2,300,000 stones, which had to be quarried and transported to the site. Each stone weighs about 2.5 tons!
The two images above are of Khafre’s Pyramid, smaller than Khufu’s, but still retaining some of the fine limestone casing at its tip. Originally all three structures were encased in the expensive limestone, but time and looters have taken their toll. Menkaure’s Pyramid rounds out the famous trio.
The Great Sphinx is a mythological creature with the head of a human, the body of a lion and the wings of a falcon, and is connected to the Sun God Ra. People have speculated that his missing nose is the result of Napoleon’s soldiers using it for target practice when the famous French emperor invaded Egypt, but that cannot be verified. The statue is part of the pyramid complex.
A sumptuous Lebanese lunch marked the end of our stay in this fascinating country. There’s so much more to learn and write about, but I’ll conclude with this story about the relocation of Abu Simbal, facts I learned after I returned home and read a biography of Christiane Desroches-Noblecourt called Empress of the Nile.
Desroches-Noblecourt, an intrepid fighter in the French Resistance (she was responsible for relocating and secreting many masterpieces from the Louvre to Loire Valley chateaux to avert Nazi theft) became an Egyptologist after the war, a rare career for a woman in those days. Energetically advocating for the ambitious temple relocation scheme, she was able to secure the support of Jacqueline Kennedy, who persuaded JFK to appeal to Congress for funds to help the effort. Even after his death she continued to make sure the US provided financial assistance. This was a fascinating book and enriched my understanding of Egypt and its monuments. I highly recommend it.