Cienfuegos, Cuba

A UNESCO city on the southern coast of Cuba, Cienfuegos was settled not only by the Spanish but also by the French and so its architecture is more French than in other Cuban cities.  

School boys were eating some kind of local honeysuckle and posed in front of a banyan tree.

Horse carriages were the local form of shared taxis.

I met these two Mexican cousins in the bus station heading towards Cienfuegos.  We ended up hanging out and here we visited the 16th-century Spanish fortress, Castillo de Jagua at the entrance of the Bay of Cienfuegos.

In the canon

In the well

I visited the botanical gardens outside Cienfuegos.  It was once partnered with Harvard University and contains possibly the greatest diversity of palm trees in the world.

Some sort of bromelia

A palm with cactus-like spikes

Maybe a ceiba?

Some local sentiment on the highway...(Bloqueo = Embargo)