Nuestra Habana Photos p. 10

The Lonely Planet refers to the Necrópolis Cristóbal Colón as Cuba's largest sculpture park. Maybe we were feeling a bit morbid, but a group of us went to check it out. The grounds are big enough to get lost in, and the sight-obscuring white stones don't help much either… a true city of the dead.

In the cemetery, an older uniformed woman who said she worked for the department of the interior stopped me for a chat. She asked me where I was staying, and whether or not I would go to her house for a visit. When I looked around, I noticed that my group had vanished and the workers were locking the gates. I told the woman that I had to get back to my group, but she wouldn't let me go. It was hard for me to understand her, and I couldn't figure out what she wanted or why she didn't let me go on my way. She stood too close when she talked to me, and after she would say something she would stare at me for a long time, like the hidden meaning of her words would eventually unfold on my side. I tried to explain that I had to meet with my group in a hour, but it was useless. It was becoming increasingly hard to be friendly, and the woman was really freaking me out. At one point she took out her ID from the Department of the Interior and showed me it, which really confused me. I eventually said farewell, and was able to catch a cab home. The encounter was very surreal, and I still remember the woman's strange speckled eyes.

This is a detail of the enormous monument to the city's firefighters, dated 1890. For some reason, I got real artsy-fartsy at the necropolis. Maybe I was just trying to get together some cover art for the goth-rock band I'm going to have one day.