Cuba: People & Places

Hi everyone. We are nearing the end of the Cuba series. This will likely be the second-to-last post. In it we are going to leave Havana again as we did in the post at the end of April.

We’ll first return to Pinar del Río Province to the west of Havana. Our initial stop will be the colorful city of Pinar del Río. It’s not a very touristy place which made it all the more fun to visit and get a glimpse of everyday city life outside of Havana. The architecture can best be described as eclectic. Next, we will stop off at the well known Finca Quemado del Rubí tobacco plantation in San Juan y Martinez which I mentioned in the late April post. I promised in that post that we would be back there again in a future post so that you could see more of the place. I visited the finca in 2014 and in 2019. Among other things, you’ll see a photo of the legendary proprietor, Héctor Luis Prieto, and also several shots of the resident master cigar roller (torcedor) in action. (That’s not Sr. Prieto in the photo at the top; it’s someone at a different finca in Viñales Valley.)

Finally, we will return to the gorgeous Viñales Valley and the tobacco country there, including for some visits to other much more modest tobacco farms. We’ll take a closer look than last time at this UNESCO designated landscape and see several shots of the tobacco fields (vegas) dotted with tobacco drying barns amidst the dramatic limestone hills (mogotes) of the valley, including one of my very favorites from Viñales picturing the valley at dawn with the low morning fog clinging to the ground. Magical.

At the conclusion of the set we will leave Pinar del Río and head back to Havana where we’ll stop at the fishing village of Cojimar on the outskirts of Havana made famous by Ernest Hemingway. As I wrote in an earlier post back in April, Cojimar was the background for Hemingway’s Old Man and the Sea. It’s where Hemingway kept his sport fishing boat, the Pilar. Like so much of Cuba it’s another picturesque but fading place seemingly stuck in time.

Once again the people make the place. What a delight it was both trips to be able to take so many pictures of locals and especially the incredibly photogenic children. Street photography opportunities were everywhere as in Havana.

See you in a few weeks for what I expect to be the final Cuba post. We’ll journey to Matanzas, Cienfuegos and Trinidad to the southeast of Havana.

Click on (or tap) an image to expand it (and use the arrow to the right on an expanded image to go through the set, if preferred over scrolling down in the post)

Enjoy!