This article appeared in the June 2005 issue of Photography Monthly…

Cuba, March 2005

The dull thud, thud, thud emanating from the back end of our dusty hire car confirmed my worst fears. We'd finally got ourselves a flat. After almost a week of driving along Cuba's tired pot-holed roads, the only surprise is that it didn't happen sooner. But it's still a pain; even more so when we discover that the only spanner we've got doesn't actually fit the wheel nuts. Can't exactly call the AA, can we.

Fortunately, problems never last for long in Cuba. Out of nowhere, a truck pulls up, the driver and his mate get to work and within minutes we're mobile.

Arriving in Trinidad soon after, the car is immediately whisked away and repaired. Two tyres have a total of ten punctures, caused not by potholes, as suspected, but by bloody crab claws littering a short stretch of coast road we'd driven along that afternoon.

In the UK, those tyres would be scrapped and replaced with new ones. But the Cubans can't afford such luxuries. Decades of sanctions and shortages mean they have to make everything last as long as possible, so the holes are plugged, the tyres inflated and after settling the £8 bill we're away.

I'd been longing to visit Cuba for years, and finally made it back in March, spending a week travelling around with two friends. Everyone reckons that when Castro dies Cuba will change, and as he's been a bit doddery of late, I didn't want to wait any longer. That said, having been there now I reckon it will take many years before any kind of change becomes visible. Cuba is one of the biggest islands in the world and the whole country has been decaying at the same rate for the last 50 years, so it will take a mammoth effort to reverse that.

In the meantime, what you see is exactly what you expect - only a hundred times better. I had my doubts about the ancient American cars that have become a symbol of Cuba, wondering if there would just be the odd one or two rumbling around. But they're everywhere, and not only in Havana - every town and city in the country. It's the same with the wonderful old colonial buildings. They're not limited to the odd street here and there - every street looks like that!

Wherever you look it's clear that there came a point in Cuba's history, soon after the revolution, when the money ran out and ever since then the country has been falling into dereliction. Ironically, it's this very dereliction that makes Cuba such a fascinating place. It's unique; there's nowhere else quite like it.

Starting out in Havana, we would set out before sunrise and wander in no particular direction, just seeing where the mood took us. Havana Viejo is a great place to photograph musicians but Havana Centro is more decrepit and better for street scenes and old cars. There's also the Malecon, Havana's waterfront. It's a popular meeting place for Havana's young, who frolic in the sea or fish off the rocks while couples walk hand-in-hand and musicians play lively Cuban music. As the sun slowly sets, buildings overlooking the ocean glow golden in the last light of the day. It's a scene so atmospheric and perfect that you have to pinch yourself to make sure it's real, a ritual that I found myself so many times each day that by the end of the week my arms looked like those of a heroin addict.

Leaving Havana for Pinar del Rio province, we managed to take a wrong turn and a two hour drive became a five hour expedition. Cuba has many things, but road signs aren't one of them and it's incredibly easy to get lost without even realising it! Some say it's intentional; to confuse potential invaders, but more likely it's that the signs were there once but when they fell apart there was no money to replace them.

Our main reason for heading west was to explore the Vinales Valley, a big tobacco growing area with an unusual landscape. One of the highlights of the whole trip, however, was spending a couple of hours with a family who own a tobacco smallholding down in the valley. Their hospitality was overwhelming. We must have appeared like aliens from outer space with our backpacks and tripods and expensive cameras, yet far from being embarrassed by their poverty, they were proud of what little they had and happy to show it off. I came away feeling very humble and very privileged to have been invited into their lives, if only for a short time - as well as excited by the pictures I'd managed to take.

From Vinales we backtracked, passing through Havana en-route to Cienfuegos. Fondly referred to as 'The Pearl of the South', Cienfuegos is a beautiful coastal town with pretty tree-lined streets, baroque facades and elegant squares. I spent hours wandering from block to block, photographing the architecture and cars, and though we had planned to stay in Cienfuegos mainly to break our journey, it threw up many nice surprises and is a place I look forward to seeing again - photographically it offers great potential.

Our final destination, Trinidad, is the most beautiful town in Cuba. Wandering along its cobbled streets, admiring the 16th century buildings, I expected Clint Eastwood to appear at any second, complete with poncho and six-gun. In the soft, dawn light, the old town around Plaza Major really is like a scene out of The Magnificent Seven.

Would I go back? In a flash. Cuba is the most inspiring and intoxicating place I've been to in a long time, and by the end of the week, far from being ready to return home, I wanted to turn round and start all over again. There's just so much to see and the only way to do a place like Cuba justice is by spending time there, hanging out, letting the place get under your skin. I'm already dreaming of a return.


See the Cuba Image Gallery here...