Cuba: More People & Places

Havana to Trinidad.

Bienvenido (welcome back)! This is it. The final Cuba post in the series. Al final del camino (the end of the road). It has been totally fun to share these posts, and it was a fantastic place to visit – twice.

Last post in July we traveled to gorgeous Pinar del Río Province southwest of Havana with a mix of photos from the 2014 and 2019 trips. We didn’t head eastward during the first workshop. In this post with photos only from last year, however, we will head to the southeast from Havana to colonial Trinidad, in the province of Sancti Spíritus, in central Cuba at almost the middle point of the island. Along the way before we get to Trinidad we will first visit the site of the former Hershey sugar refinery and company town, the city of Matanzas, a little country crossroads village in Matanzas Province called La Isabel and the city of Cienfuegos.

As with the prior post, the people make the places. Once again it was a complete joy to photograph the people of Cuba with the added pleasure during the eastward journey of mostly being in some very untouristy places for the usual stellar street photography opportunities. Also, we got to see what some more sizeable Cuban cities look like away from Havana.

Let’s start at Camilo Cienfuegos – formerly known as Hershey – near Santa Cruz del Norte, Mayabeque Province. This was where the US Hershey Company had its Cuban sugar refinery and other Cuban holdings, including a railway and a company town.

I read that it was once one of the most productive sugar refineries in Cuba if not in all of Latin America. Hershey sold the plant and all of its other Cuban holdings in the 1940s before the Cuban revolution.

The Castro government seized the company properties from their new owners and renamed Hershey after the revolutionary, Camilo Cienfuegos Gorriarán. I also read that many people still use the village’s original name which is pronounced “AIR-see.”

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union the Cuban sugar industry declined significantly with the loss of the advantageous Soviet and other Eastern Bloc purchase contracts, and in the early 2000s the government shut down many sugar plants, including the former Hershey refinery. The site is an industrial ruin these days with the buildings in pretty sorry condition. The Hershey Electric Railway from the years of North American ownership is still in operation. We rode briefly on a branch line of the old railway.

Many thanks to photographer and workshop director Jay Seldin for the photo of me at the other end of a turbine in one of the buildings.

Next, we’ll visit the provincial city of Matanzas on the northern shore of the island. There are some fine surviving buildings from the city’s more elegant days. We stayed at the Parque de la Libertad which made a very good impression. Elsewhere in the city it can get a little scruffier. We did a long walk along Río San Juan and Río Yumurí all the way to the Barrio de Versalles (Versailles Quarter) and Hershey Railway station which is the northern terminus of the line. Another incredibly photogenic place.

After Matanzas we headed for Cienfuegos on the southern coast with a stop at La Isabel, a sleepy little crossroads village on the way. Check out the country store photos! Now that’s Cuban time travel.

The entire historic heart of Cienfuegos is UNESCO Heritage certified. It’s a very attractive city center. In case you were wondering (I was), the city is named after a different Cienfuegos, José Cienfuegos, a 19th century Cuban general.

Our final stop is historic Trinidad which is a true gem. Five stars. It’s the only place on the two trips that we did home stays. Lots of beautiful surviving colonial buildings, cobblestone streets and otherwise tremendous charm. Yet another UNESCO World Heritage Site. Truthfully, even if it was a little more touristy, outside of Havana – of all the towns and cities we visited, east and west – for me it’s hard to top Trinidad. Wonderful.

What does that blackboard in Trinidad say? “No tenemos WIFI pero hay mojito que hace la comunicación mas fácil” – we do not have Wifi but there is mojito which makes communication easier. Classic!

I added one more photo at the end from a stop on the drive back to Havana for one last example of the pleasant little unexpected surprises one often encounters in Cuba – nope, we sure are not at a service plaza on the Pennsylvania Turnpike or I-5 in California. It’s Cuba: a piña colada stand. Does it get better than that?

On that happy note, the Cuba series is a wrap. Thank you so much for joining me. I am now going on a blogging break. I am not sure how long. There’s a family wedding coming up in Wales, a big move from Brooklyn to Denver in the fall and some projects to which I will need to devote some time, including a book I am working on. We shall see when the blog can go live again. See you maybe towards the end of the year or more likely next year.

In the meantime, enjoy the photos and stay safe and well. Follow me on Instagram or Facebook if you would like to see the occasional photograph and keep up with my now very limited traveling while the blog is offline.

Instagram: dleventhalphotography
Facebook: Daniel Leventhal Photography (@dleventhalphotography)

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