Cuba Is Not For Everyone
But it left something in me I can’t shake off.
Havana in January
There are places you visit and places you feel. Cuba was the latter.
We arrived in Havana in January — a time when the light felt softer and the streets were quieter, like the city had exhaled after the holidays. We stayed in a beautiful big guesthouse with white shutters and a courtyard where the morning sun pooled in silence. Our guide, Eddie, met us each day with stories. Not rehearsed ones — real ones. The kind that aren't filtered for visitors.
He showed us the cracks in the city’s paint, the resilience behind every shortcut. We didn’t follow the usual route. No all-inclusives, no gloss. Just side streets, shared coffee, and places where the air felt full of memory.
A Country Suspended in Time
I grew up in a communist country. There are things you never forget — the particular shade of gray in the buildings, the waiting, the small workarounds people invent when they’re not allowed to dream too loudly.
In Cuba, I felt that all over again.
Not as nostalgia, but as a quiet rage.
There’s something deeply unfair about watching people live with so little choice. A country caught between two powers, neither of which ever truly served it. That ache followed me through every narrow alley, every smile that held both pride and exhaustion.
Photographing Cuba Felt… Incomplete
I brought my film cameras — mostly medium format, a few 35mm rolls too. But even film, with all its weight and slowness, felt inadequate.
Nothing I photographed felt finished. It felt like I was scratching at the surface of something I didn’t have the language to explain. The pictures are beautiful, yes. But they hold something heavier: tension, stillness, resistance.
I couldn’t even look at them when I returned home. They asked questions I didn’t have answers for.
No, Cuba Is Not for Everyone
It’s not easy. Not effortless.
But if you're willing to listen instead of chase, feel instead of capture — then maybe Cuba will stay with you too.
Tips for Traveling to Cuba (If You Still Feel Called)
Travel with a local guide. Someone like Eddie. It changes everything.
Stay in a guesthouse. Skip the polished hotel experience. Choose reality.
Bring cash — cards likely won’t work.
Learn a few phrases in Spanish. It’s a kind of respect.
Pack your patience and humility. Cuba will ask more from you than it gives — and somehow, that’s the gift.
the film here is scanned and developed by The Find Lab / Utah
