My third instalment of Cuba photos. It's now officially two years since I've been and am missing it terribly. Unfortunately, even if I go now I'd expect a completely different place to what I experienced, so these photos would be a sole way to relive the Cuba I walked through in 2015. The majority of these come from the centre of Havana, where the shops were most dense, as were the restaurants and general hustle and bustle of Cuban life. Very different from the beachy outskirts, it was an illuminating contrast to rural Cuba, with a surprisingly high tourist population.
Within we were taken to a museum where the entire city was laid out in miniature, a timer counting out the minutes as hours so we could see Cuba transform from day to night and back again. The most fascinating part was going into the shops. A favourite was the perfume shop, which looked straight out of the 20s (due to Cuba's relative isolation from western modernisation until recently), however, a visit to the general store (equivalent to a 7/11) revealed the true inner workings of the country. Not one thing in that store was deemed 'affordable' and provisions were rarely purchased from these government sanctioned and monitored outlets. Instead, a thriving black market catered for daily needs such as sugar, salt, toilet paper etc. Therefore, much of these stores' profit came from tourists, unaware of the grossly inflated prices they were paying and of the black market alternatives.
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| Taken from an obscure clocktower, 250 steps up a rickety stone staircase and (probably illegally) crossing onto someone's rooftop terrace |
