Highlights of Havana

Staying most of our time outside of the popular Havana Viejo area, we saw a bit of ordinary middle class life.

A mall in our neighbourhood; Diane bundles up for breezy taxi ride; the Malicon (expect showers!) .

Car scenes including one showing staircase to nowhere.

Varied architecture and colour-schemes.

Callejón de Hamel

Revitalized by the painter/ sculptor/ muralist/pop artist, Salvador González Escalonez, in the late 1990’s, this alley is located in the barrio Cayó Hueso where in the 1940s a big Cuban músic movement called fillin‘ (feeling) was established.

Tobacco pickers of mostly African heritage who came from Key West, Florida, settled here. Black musical traditions flourished including carnival street bands (cámaras) and rumbas.

While the street is interesting any day of the week, Sunday highlights traditional live music and dancing:

A local dancer and piano core art.

Ernest Hemingway’s Cuban Estate

The taxi driver took us to the Hemingway Marina in the opposite suburb of Havana but we eventually made it to his estate, Finca la Vigía (Outlook Farm).

Pretty lovely digs, pool, tennis court, writing studio…where Hemmingway wrote Old Man and the Sea.

Other highlights of our four-week Cuban experience were:

Attending the Havana Jazz festival, seeing the likes of Chucho Valdez.

And at a personal level connecting with Canadian artist Frank Pasian and Rigoberto Rodríguez:

Celebrating friendship and Frank and Rigo’s ‘Same and Different’ Exhibition.