Come with me to look at Havana, first from The Christ (El Cristo), which watches peacefully and immensely from the village of Casablanca, on the other side of the Bay. And then, from the cliffs of the Morro Castle, with the company of a beautiful lady, the night.
Every time I walk or cycle along the Harbour Avenue (Avenida del Puerto) my eyes always fall on this beautiful sculpture.
Look at its details!
So seeing it up close makes the experience even more intense.
I tried to capture each image in its true colours of that day. The sun was setting while we cycled uphill to the viewpoint where Jilma Madera's great work is located.
This is not the grand, dreamy view that tourist magazines usually show, but it is the real thing, a piece of hill where the undergrowth is part of the beautiful, natural attire, where you can also see the hustle and bustle of the maritime workers or at least the structures they leave behind after going home to rest on a Sunday.
I know there are better days to photograph, but I was there on that, the most common and ungraceful Sunday of the calendar; excited about a sunset that was totally hidden from me... it happens. I have many illusions and I also suffer from many disappointments.
Oh, but this view is beautiful. What do we see there? Let's start from left to right: the San Francisco de Asis Convent and its square, the one with the pigeons, the Lonja del Comercio building with its Mercury in the dome, which succumbed in a unequal battle against the implacable Eolo in 1999, when a hurricane called Irene was having fun here. Since that day, the light and graceful God of Commerce has been slowly turning like a weather vane, thanks to the solution that renowned engineers devised so that it would not suffer such a fate again.
That elongated blue construction is the restaurant Los Marinos, next to the Bay, I think there are also shops there... I haven't really been inside for a long time, but you can see that it has a terrace at the back from where someone probably used to watch El Cristo.
😃
Now we look from the middle of the image to the right and we can see 4 large buildings in the distance and the Malecón. These are: the Hermanos Amejeiras Hospital, the K23 hotel, the Habana Libre hotel, and the Focsa, an apartment building that also has a restaurant on its highest floor with incredible views, bars, shopping gallery... and is considered one of the 7 wonders of Cuban civil engineering. We are looking in the direction of the Vedado neighbourhood.
What you see now is the old San José warehouses, which now houses a place for handicraft vendors, and other offices, I guess I have to take you there one day to admire these works. You are looking to the left, in the direction of Old Havana... excuse me, I've got you looking like the head of a fan. 🤣
Here it is 10:18 pm, I'm on my terrace sharing the 4G connection from my mobile to my laptop and writing this post. I haven't had an ADSL connection for three days and it seems that nobody cares about my situation even though I've complained several times, because nobody comes to see what's going on. Right now a train is passing by.... what a long train it is, my God! I know because I can hear it. I love the sound of trains! The train is still whistling in the distance.
...
Would you like to come with me now to the Morro Castle, where the lighthouse is? I'm sorry I didn't take pictures of the lighthouse. 😄
These days the place is more crowded because the Havana International Book Fair is being held in the Cabaña. This is a fortress complex called Morro-Cabaña.
The village of Casablanca is very easily connected to them and as we were cycling, everything is close by.
Here, of course, I also had my moment. And also a little bit of vertigo.
See? No railings.
Have you ever felt ignored by someone you adore? It's like vertigo in my case... you take a step back; but the idea that you are falling without end hurts, and your mind is busy talking to you and tormenting you, telling you that you may never recover from it again.
I didn't see the sunset because the clouds simply blocked it all...
Behind us, there were similar colours but from a fire and I knew it because sirens could be heard immediately.
That's all you'll see of the lighthouse, behind the cannon stationed high up there. We had to go back home, because the night was getting too intense, and believe me it was a long way.
It really was a pleasant Sunday, as I said... and it also made me reflect: illusions are born out of attachment to a concrete result, the one you draw in your mind, the one you would like to achieve. However, we can avoid disappointments, I suppose, by living in the moment, letting it be, as it wants to be. It's not a good thing to burn things, by the way. I hope there was nothing to regret so that I now have a unique photo in my archives.
And back to the subject of illusions, attachments and disappointments... theory is always easier than practice... but with will, anything is possible.
Related post, in case you missed it and would like to take a look.Destination unknown 😜🚴♀
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