Cuba, Havana specifically, is a photographer’s dream. The colorful old cars, the once demure but now crumbling architecture and the friendly people, who as I learned firsthand are hams for the camera. For years I saw photos online from journalists and immediately added it to my bucket list. Only one problem, a little thing called el bloqueo or The Blockage in English; more commonly known as the US/Cuban Embargo. This Embargo, which started in 1960, has changed forms many times through the years, but mainly imposes sanctions on Cuba for all commercial, economic and financial exports, in an effort to force them to convert to a democratic system and provide better human rights for their citizens. It is of course much more complex than that, but you get the idea.
Up until the last couple of years, these sanctions also meant Americans could not travel to Cuba, but I wasn’t giving up on the dream. Enter December 2014, when Barack Obama and Raul Castro met and began a six-month long negotiation, which culminated with an agreement to ease travel bans and the establishment of an American Embassy in Havana, Cuba.
When word spread in early 2016, that President Obama was going to be travelling to Cuba and airlines were going to open limited routes to the island country, I immediately texted my professor from college, whom I travelled with on the London/Paris trips, and was also my photography professor, a very simple “Cuba??” and got a quick response of “I’m in!”, and the whirlwind of travel plans began.
