Pulp Havana: 90 Miles From Paradise
This featurette discusses the resilience of the Cuban people, the culture of Havana, its architecture, hotels, cigars, and more. Beautiful photography by Geoffrey Ragatz.
This featurette discusses the resilience of the Cuban people, the culture of Havana, its architecture, hotels, cigars, and more. Beautiful photography by Geoffrey Ragatz.
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pulp<br />
urban sprawl<br />
image<br />
drink&dine<br />
scene<br />
nightsites<br />
flight944<br />
all access<br />
elevation<br />
rants&raves<br />
????<br />
last word<br />
944 picks<br />
event calendar<br />
street<br />
beats<br />
hipsterrific<br />
scene<br />
gayborhood<br />
game<br />
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944 MAGAZINE / JUNE 2007
pulp<br />
<strong>90</strong><br />
miles<br />
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flight944<br />
all access<br />
elevation<br />
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from<br />
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paradise<br />
BY JANIE DIAZ PHOTOGRAPHY BY GEOFFREY RAGATZ<br />
last word<br />
944 picks<br />
event calendar<br />
Geoffrey Ragatz is a nomadic photographer. A few street days<br />
after we first met him, he was catching a plane to either his<br />
second home in Chile or to a photo shoot in Mexico. With<br />
a penchant for a variety of photographic styles, beats recent<br />
assignments have taken Ragatz to the Marquesas,<br />
Vietnam, Panama, Indonesia, The Galapagos, Alaska’s<br />
hipsterrific<br />
Inside Passage, Tortola and the Cook Islands.<br />
For a photographer accustomed to living out of a suitcase<br />
and mingling with an array of cultures, it wasn’t until scene Ragatz<br />
ventured to Cuba (via Mexico) that a country really captured<br />
his heart. Ragatz shares his journey to the island country at<br />
gayborhood<br />
odds with the U.S. since 1959. — KATIE PEGLER<br />
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944 MAGAZINE / JUNE 2007<br />
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Longstanding political<br />
drink&dine<br />
adversities facing Cuba since<br />
Fidel Castro’s rise to power<br />
scene in 1959 are not the only<br />
notable aspects of the island<br />
once known as the Jewel of<br />
nightsites the Caribbean. <strong>Havana</strong>, the<br />
island nation’s capital city,<br />
flight944 has long been celebrated as<br />
a destination for the kind of<br />
traveler who likes a little extra<br />
all spice access and a little less of the<br />
ordinary on their jaunts.<br />
elevation<br />
Once a favorite spot for Rat Packers like Frank Sinatra<br />
and Dean Martin, <strong>Havana</strong> boasted the finest hotels,<br />
casinos, restaurants and, of course, cigars. While the<br />
days of luxurious celebrity vacations may be a thing of<br />
the past for La Habana, Cuba still creates some of the<br />
world’s finest puros, rum and sugar cane.<br />
The U.S. embargo bans its citizens from traveling to<br />
the island other than under fairly rare circumstances,<br />
but travelers from around the world, especially<br />
Europe and Canada have fallen in love with Cuba’s<br />
natural beauty and mystique. <strong>Havana</strong> is teeming with<br />
color and excitement; it is a city that celebrates life.<br />
The island’s Spanish colonial roots can be seen<br />
in the crumbling majesty of much of its architecture.<br />
Buildings from the <strong>Havana</strong> Cathedral to the Presidential<br />
Palace all have roots in Spanish, and even Moorish,<br />
design elements. It is a patchwork city where Gothic<br />
design can be seen next to a thatched roof.<br />
If you want to be wowed in person, you’ll have to<br />
rants&raves<br />
????<br />
last word<br />
944 picks<br />
event calendar<br />
street<br />
beats<br />
hipsterrific<br />
scene<br />
gayborhood<br />
game<br />
26<br />
944 MAGAZINE / JUNE 2007
pulp<br />
urban sprawl<br />
image<br />
drink&dine<br />
scene<br />
nightsites<br />
flight944<br />
all access<br />
elevation<br />
rants&raves<br />
????<br />
last word<br />
944 picks<br />
event calendar<br />
street<br />
beats<br />
hipsterrific<br />
scene<br />
gayborhood<br />
game<br />
944 MAGAZINE / JUNE 2007<br />
27
pulp<br />
urban sprawl<br />
image<br />
drink&dine<br />
scene<br />
nightsites<br />
flight944<br />
all access<br />
elevation<br />
rants&raves<br />
????<br />
last word<br />
944 picks<br />
event calendar<br />
street<br />
beats<br />
catch a flight to Mexico City and then wing it on your own to the Yucatan for a<br />
flight directly to Cuba’s port city of <strong>Havana</strong>.<br />
hipsterrific<br />
If you decide to take your chances on this journey (fines are generally<br />
$10,000 to $20,000 if big brother finds out you were there), be sure to make<br />
special time for <strong>Havana</strong>, which boasts gorgeous churches and museums as<br />
scene<br />
well as hundreds of displays of everything from Neo-Classical to Art Deco and<br />
Post-Modern architecture. The people of Cuba are as diverse as those in the<br />
United States: African, native, Spanish, Haitian, Asian, South American and<br />
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European origins make up the ancestry of the people. Every group brings the<br />
best of their cultures to Cuba and mixes it right in — creating gorgeous food,<br />
dance and music.<br />
Yes, there is a lot on the table for the small island, Castro’s health now<br />
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topping that list. But, regardless of what the future holds for Cuba’s politics,<br />
no other island will ever be the Jewel of the Caribbean.<br />
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944 MAGAZINE / JUNE 2007
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