Friday, May 1, 2009

Havana










HAVANA CUBA
Havana or "La Habana" as the Cubans  call it,  is a one-off. Sitting pretty as the Caribbean’s largest and most vivacious city, its romantic atmosphere and infectious energy are the stuff of legend. Where else do you find vintage American cars running off Russian Lada engines, ration shops juxtaposed against gleaming colonial palaces, and revolutionary sloganeering drowned out by all-night parties?

Habaneros (inhabitants of Habana) love their city and it’s not difficult to see why. Amid the warm crystalline waters of the sparkling Caribbean, over 500 years of roller-coaster history have conspired to create one of Latin America’s most electric and culturally unique societies. The stomping ground for swashbuckling pirates, a heavily fortified slave port for the Spanish and a lucrative gambling capital for the North American Mafia, Habana has survived everything that has been thrown at it and still found time to innovate. At the forefront of modern Latino culture, Habana has spawned salsa and mambo, Havana Club rum and Cohiba cigars, mural painting and Che Guevara iconography… And the list goes on.

Enhanced by Zemanta

No comments:

Post a Comment