The magazine of the photo-essay
July/Aug 2021 back issue
Cuba
“A free, really high quality photo-essay magazine. Fabulous!”
Stephen Fry. British actor, writer and film maker
by Manuel Rivera-Ortiz
In 2002, I went to Cuba on a personal quest for self-discovery.
I needed to remember what Puerto Rico was like when I was growing up.
I’d often been told that, in some ways, time had stood still in Cuba; I’d
heard that said by Papá’s friends who had immigrated to Puerto Rico from
Cuba some years back. I’d sit and listen to their powerful stories about
Castro and his regime and the hardships. Mostly, I remember their stories
about leaving family behind!
My Puerto Rico was still alive and well here, in the west at tobacco farms
near Pinar del Rio, in the east near Playa Girón on the bank of the Bahia
de Cochinos,the Bay of Pigs, and further on in Cienfuegos andTrinidad
and Camaguey! And new friends — I found a unique community here,
foreign to foreigners but not to me, more like a family in so many ways.
I saw barefoot children playing made-up games on the sunbaked streets, rolling old bicycle tires with a stick. I saw hope
and happiness on their faces. I saw — me.
Here’s my Cuba. Here’s my Puerto Rico.
– Manuel Rivera-Ortiz
LA HABANA In the Cuban capital, most people are of African heritage.
© Manuel Rivera-Ortiz
LA HABANA Havana’s Malecon stretches across the whole length of Avenida de
Maceo’s esplanade. © Manuel Rivera-Ortiz
LA HABANA An indoor mall in Old Havana.
© Manuel Rivera-Ortiz
PINAR DEL RÍO Speeding car in Via Blanca heading east to Guanabo - a highway in
the north that connects Havana to Matanzas © Manuel Rivera-Ortiz
PINAR DEL RÍO Cuba’s Vuelta Abajo region - Pinar del Rio - produces the world’s
most delicate tobacco leaves. © Manuel Rivera-Ortiz
ARTEMISA - LA HABANA Bus service is at best unreliable in Cuba, with Viazul being
the leading bus service covering the island’s entirety © Manuel Rivera-Ortiz
ARTEMISA - LA HABANA Only one-third of Cuban land is arable and vertile, yielding
upwards of two crops per year. © Manuel Rivera-Ortiz
MATANZAS “We Will Overcome in the Speediest Possible Time“; so reads a bill-board
in the middle of nowhere en route to Mayabeque. © Manuel Rivera-Ortiz
CIENFUEGOS On a meandering dusty road in Cienfuegos, peddlers wave me down to
sell me garlic. Garlic is the second-most cultivated spice in Cuba.
© Manuel Rivera-Ortiz
CIEGO DE ÁVILA_Ciego de Ávila Province devotes 730 hectares to tobacco
harvesting. Five hundred of these hectares are dedicated to “tapado” (a shadegrown
wrapper leaf technique). © Manuel Rivera-Ortiz
CAMAGÜEY - LA HABANA An obligatory picture of an old American car. Kia,Hyundai,
and Peugeot are the leading car importers to the Island.
© Manuel Rivera-Ortiz
