Doubting the nonexistence of God
Of course I'm still in Havana, and now getting perilously close to the two-month mark, yet still planning to decamp to a quiet, idyllic beach ‘next week’. But if you've been following this page for any amount of time, that won't come as a surprise to you. Nor should it to me, I guess.
And all for the best, as these past couple weeks I've really started to hit my amateur anthropologist groove on the streets of Havana. Although the main excuse for staying put - other than the typical inertia - has been the abundance of work for my day job, coupled with the fact that both internet and electricity are much less reliable outside the capital. So it goes (still)….
Cafeteria Ciro
Call me old-fashioned, but the world would be a better place if more proprietors of small businesses slapped their visages on the signage. And all the more so when they're cool looking old chaps like Ciro here....
Rear Window
When you're too lazy to finalize any of the dozens of posts you've got ideas for, but old Mother Nature steps up with a glorious sunset and gives you a good enough excuse to put them off until yet another manaña. Gracias, Madre Naturaleza....
One country's trash…
As they say, one country's trash is another country's IT hardware sufficient for wiping $1 trillion of market value off the bloated share prices of smug oligarch bros’ monopolistic mega corps after they spent the last year trying to shove a bunch of AI nonsense down our throats even though no one wants or needs any of it. Or something. I've always been bad at remembering the exact wording of proverbs.
NB: This photo was actually taken a few weeks ago, before anyone had ever heard of DeepSeek or knew that Emperor Xi was going to serve up one giant steaming dim sum basket of schadenfreude to celebrate the Lunar New Year. Emperor Xi, gotta love that guy - such an underrated prankster!
The price of eggs in Cuba
In Havana, eggs are sold individually or by the carton of 30, which cost anywhere between 2900-3300 pesos these days, around $10, or $0.33 per egg. Similar to prices in the US. Except here 3500 pesos is also a normal monthly salary. Not a typo, that's monthly, and is the equivalent of 32 eggs. All things considered, it's pretty amazing that this place functions at all....
On a related note, here's a recent story about eggs, local salaries and Cuban baseball players.
A little sunset rooftop reading
“I have discovered that most of
the beauties of travel are due to
the strange hours we keep to see them:
The domes of the Church of
the Paulist Fathers in Weehawken
against a smokey dawn - the heart stirred -
are beautiful as Saint Peters
approached after years of anticipation.”
NB: I'm only 25 or so pages into this book, so didn't have many options for quotes here. But this one seemed sufficiently apropos. Not only because it's called ‘January Morning’ and mentions travel, but also because it seems to be praising the benefit of having low (or even no) expectations, which has long been one of the Travelling Curmudgeon golden rules....
Friday evening in Havana
When opportunity knocks
If any aspiring entrepreneurs in Havana are looking to get into the street cart vending racket, this timeless beauty is for sale and hitched up on the south side of San Lazaro between Crespo and Genios streets. Better act fast though, a golden startup opportunity like this surely won't last long!
¡Buena suerte!
RIP Ethel and Julius Rosenberg
Can't decide whether to hypothetically file this one away under ‘Names I hadn't thought of in decades’ or ‘Monuments I didn't expect to find in Havana’. A surprising blast from the layst in either case....
NB: That's Ethel and Julius Rosenberg if you don't recognise the faces and can't read the inscription. At the very bottom it also says “Assassinated 19-6-1953”.
Sunday morning in Havana
Cine Riviera
While Havana might very well have more cinemas and theatres per capita* than any other city in the world, there's zero doubt that it has the most retro cinemas and theatres.
Or at least it feels that way after seven solid weeks of anecdotal evidence. In any case, love that places like the Cine Riviera still exist and still show films in 2025....
*Internet says Belarus has the most cinemas per capita, or one for every 2734 inhabitants. No data on how many of them are retro, but it stands to reason that it's a goodly portion. Of course Belarus isn't a city and theatres haven't been included, so it's all a moot point.
Niebla
Spanish word of the Day: niebla
(noun) fog, mist
Sunset on Calle Obispo
A cliché shot of sunset on Obispo Street earlier tonight - just to balance out the shot of rooftop fog from this morning. Me gusta symmetry....
Empty Inside
Not gonna lie, biting into this empanada* and finding it almost entirely empty - that dark spot on the bottom is a daub of guava marmalade - was a bit of a disappointment.
But then realising that what it lacked in caloric value it probably made up for several times over in social media potential made the 70 pesos ($0.21) expenditure well worth it.
*While Cubans call lots of things empanadas and this one does have the appearance of one, their overall usage of the term presumably wouldn't go over very well in places like Colombia or Venezuela.
Sunset on the Malecón
When your backlog of random whimsical observational photos to post is already getting unmanageable, but the evening's sunset is just too nice not to share....
Yugoslavia at home
I wanna go to Yugoslavia!
But we have Yugoslavia at home!
Yugoslavia at home:
Todo esta OK
Had walked past this 1953 Pontiac Chieftain* quite a few times over the past couple months and always meant to take a photo. Happy to report that that goal was finally realised earlier this evening
But even better was noticing that the sticker on the window says ‘Todo esta OK’ (‘Everything is okay’). Perfection. It's also next to an iconic Apple emblem - an incredibly common sight here on these old timer cars - which somehow makes it even better.
Everything is okay, 1953 Pontiac Chieftain. Thanks for the reminder!
*I honestly wouldn't know a 1953 Pontiac Chieftain from an [insert obscure classic car name that would amuse classic car aficionados here], but Google said this is a 1953 Pontiac Chieftain, so decided to make the most of that info....
Modere Velocidad
Signs telling people to slow down seem both incredibly redundant and incredibly apropos here in Cuba....
McDonald's at Home
I could really go for a Big Mac® right now!
But we have McDonald's at home!
McDonald's at home:
To schlepp or not to schlepp? That is the question.
You know you're beginning to feel like a real local in Havana when you come across discarded furniture in the street and automatically check to see if it might be worth schlepping home and fixing up.
In this case the answer was no - mainly on account of the wood being too rotten and home being multiple kilometers across town, although not having any carpentry skills or tools also factored into the decision - but it's the thought that counts, right?
Floridita esta tourist trapita
This is by far the most famous bar in Cuba, and, if the internet is to be believed, also one of the most famous in the entire world. Why?
Because it's the birthplace of the frozen daiquiri and Hemingway & Co liked to hang out here - back in the good old days, when famous writers could just hang out in the colonies drinking frozen daiquiris all day.
Fair enough. Although nowadays way too touristy to have much appeal - beyond a photo op of the facade, of course....
Production of the new man
"But Che did not see how the abundance of material goods would create a social consciousness: “Direct material incentives and consciousness are contradictory terms in our concept.”
Besides, Che was interested not in the production of consumer goods but in the production of the new man: “It's not a question of how many pounds of meat one eats or of how many times a year somebody can go for a walk on the beach, nor of how many lovely things from abroad can be bought with current salaries.
The real question is whether the individual feels more fulfilled, with more inner richness, and with much more responsibility.” The argument was a long one. Fidel took the side of Che.
The Revolution was giving benefits to the people freely - said Fidel - it would even give free living quarters in order to give birth to a mentality that would not be like that of those who “have only money in their heads,” in order to create different attitudes toward property, toward material goods, toward work."
- Ernesto Cardenal, In Cuba (1972)
Saturday Morning Fishing Club
I took this photo without crossing the street this morning, so can't say for certain, but I think it's pretty safe to assume that these guys refer to themselves as the Saturday Morning Fishing Club, and every Saturday afternoon when they all head home - after a long day of catching fish and learning life lessons - they join in a boisterous (and extremely inebriated) Spanish language rendition of Simple Minds’ smash hit ‘Don’t You (Forget About Me)’.
And even if that's not actually true, I'm still gonna have that song stuck in my head now, and so are most of you. Don't shoot the messenger....
Doubting the nonexistence of God
Young atheists beginning to doubt the nonexistence of God - as a type of rebellion against their parents - is an incredibly amusing proposition. It's like something from a Monty Python skit. But was apparently real life Cuba in the early 1970s:
“It's amusing that what used to happen in old Catholic homes now happens in atheistic homes: the moment comes when the adolescent doubts all that his parents have taught him. When he reaches a certain age, the young person educated in a completely atheistic home begins to doubt the nonexistence of God...He asks himself the most interesting kinds of questions. It's lovely to see God rising up in youth in the form of an uprising, isn't it?”
- Ernesto Cardenal, In Cuba (1972)
Urban camo
Cuban beverage delivery trucks are so well adapted to their natural environment that they blend in seamlessly - almost as if they were camouflaged. If it weren't for the wheels giving it away, you probably couldn't even spot the one in this photo....
Post-Super Bowl cheap shot
This photo was taken a few days ago, but looks like this guy might have been a Kansas City Chiefs fan with foresight. Ouch!
Also a great time to remind everyone that sports are ultimately just more meaningless entertainment that only exist to distract us silly plebs from reality and make us easier to control. But sadly knowing it and doing something about it are two very things....
Buena Vista Curry Club
The world famous Buena Vista Curry Club!
Wait. That doesn't sound quite right for some reason....