FEATURE CubaAbsolutely Print Edition 2008

MARÍA ANTONIA'S FINCA ALCÁZAR
A relic of the past or a glimpse of the future?
Text by Stephen Gibbs Picture by Sven Creutzmann

“Two days ride and you are still on my property" is a boast you might hear quite frequently from South American landowners. But not in Cuba. Although this island was once famous for its huge ranches, many of which were in American hands before the Revolution, those days are long gone…So, when a friend told me that 47 years after all that, there is, still, one private farm in Cuba where the owner really can ride for two days and not leave home, I found it difficult to believe. It had to be worth a visit.

DETROIT DOWAGERS
Running on a wing and a prayer
Text by Christopher Baker Photographs by Sven Creutzmann

Driving through Holguín province recently, I passed an antediluvian automotive abuelo, dead as a dinosaur, stopped in the middle of the road in the middle of nowhere. Time itself seemed to have stopped on the carretera midway between Bayamo and Veguitas. The curvaceous Chevy Bel-Air stared me down with its acres of bechromed grinning grillwork. Its hood was propped open while two men peered into the engine. A third lay half-hidden beneath the car. They were still there, frozen like museum pieces, when I zoomed by in the other direction three hours later.

RAIN, RAIN, GO AWAY
The Habanero horror of precipitation
Text by Juliet Barclay Photographs by Sven Creutzmann

Habaneros hate rain and can be cast into depression by what any British person, accustomed as one is to endless meteorological variations on the theme of wetness, would consider a mere caprice. The slightest hint of impending rainfall can keep the city’s entire workforce at home and no demur whatsoever is made by their bosses if workers fail to appear on a wet day. The very notion of venturing out of the house in the rain is seen as dangerous madness, likely to bring on agues, seizures, fevers and a whole range of obscure disorders which may only be countered by a series of stressful and expensive visits to the babalao. “When necessity compels them to appear," wrote one nineteenth-century observer of habaneros in the rain, “they walk with the peculiar circumspection of a cat, picking their way with a care and timidity that often seems highly ludicrous."

THE WORD ON THE STREET
Humpty Dumpty said to Alice, “When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less." The same applies for Cubans whose unrestrained, rich colloquial language flourishes alongside Spanish.
Text by Argelio Santiesteban - Photographs by Sven Creutzmann

Humpty Dumpty said to Alice, “When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less." The same applies for Cubans whose unrestrained, rich colloquial language flourishes alongside Spanish. When a Cuban says that he or she has to see someone tinto en sangre [bloodied], they are not homicidal but simply need to see the other person come rain or shine.

HAVANA STREET FOOD FEELING HUNGRY?
Greasy, fried, ubiquitous and sometimes surprisingly tasty, Havana street food, while not for the weak-hearted, offers an intriguing mixture
Text by Beatriz Llamas - Photographs by Katharina Arias Voss

It’s practically Cuba’s national dish—the ubiquitous hand-sized, folded pizza dripping with grease enclosed in a piece of manila paper. Then there’s the curious thin, long paper cone or cucurucho that mystifies the foreign visitor until they discover it is full of surprisingly delicious roasted peanuts—the popularity of which is confirmed by the litter found at any bus stop, theatre, school or hospital exit everywhere and anywhere in the capital.

CIGAR SMOKING IN HAVANA A VISITORS GUIDE
Havana deserves its reputation as a mecca for cigar smokers. Amir Sarony talks you through the best cigars out there now and where to savour them.
Text by Amir Saarony - Photographs by Sven Creutzmann

First off, Fidel Castro no longer smokes cigars—he gave them up in 1986 in an effort to promote non-smoking in a country with one of the highest rates of lighting-up in the world. Havana nonetheless remains a mecca for cigar smokers on an island where cigars play an intricate role in the country’s history, culture and everyday life.

THE 2007 HABANO CIGAR FESTIVAL
with Terence Conran
Text By Stephen Gibbs

Maybe someone was having a quiet joke. Perhaps it was a coincidence. But for one reason or another, Havana’s Karl Marx theatre was the setting for the inaugural night of celebrations in honor of that great capitalist prop, the hand-rolled cigar.

AN EXPLOSIVE CHRISTMAS EVE PARTY
Christmas in remedios is a far cry from the traditional “silent night"
Text by Eva Torres Photographs by Adalberto Roque

For most of us, the 24th of December—Nochebuena or Christmas Eve—is marked with a quiet, family dinner. The only interruption might be the sound of Christmas carols at the door. This was probably once the case in the old Cuban town of Remedios. But in the 1820s, everything changed…

HAVANA’S RUMBA ALLEY
Sunday rumba afternoon in Central Havana
Text by Eva Torres Photographs by Sven Creutzmann

La rumba" Barely 200 meters long, Callejón de Hamel bursts every week with the movement of hips and shoulders, jiving to the rhythmic pounding of the conga. The alley itself is a wild and colourful backdrop to the music. Its most famous resident, artist Salvador González, has decorated the entire block with murals and sculpture.