One of the most remarkable joys about travel is not so much a shift in geography, but in time. I’ve been fortunate to travel to many places where very little of the modern world has infiltrated and by merely visiting, one is magically whisked back to another era. Such locations are extraordinarily rare these days, but do indeed exist.
Cuba is one such place. Castro’s fiefdom is virtually frozen in the mid-1950s when communism took root and America slapped back with an economic blockade. As a result, the entire Caribbean island is like a museum of the past. For the most part, not a smidgen of post-1950s can be seen anywhere. One can stand in the middle of a Havana street with only a couple of 1950 Fords and Edsels to keep you company; there are no billboard advertisements, neon signs, halogen street lamps, or Neiman Marcus-wearing pedestrians. Just the 1950s, pure and simple.
An excellent LA Times article in last Sunday’s paper covers these themes and also addresses something equally as important: the challenge of actually visiting a country which the US government forbids its citizens to step foot on.
Go now before McDonald’s arrives.