After our visit to the Palacio de Valle in Cienfuegos, Cuba, we took a walk through the downtown, famous for its colonial architecture.

I was fascinated by this store-front DJ. I’m not sure if his show was going out over radio airwaves, but it was definitely entertaining the Sunday afternoon crowd on the street through the speakers. Between songs, he read poetry. You don’t hear that on American radio!

Cubans love poetry. Here, a DJ reads a poem between songs.

We walked to the Parque José Martí which acts as the main square of Cienfuegos. José Martí (1853-1895) is a national hero of Cuba — a statesman, poet, and warrior who died in the cause for Cuban independence from Spain. Imagine if George Washington also wrote the poems of Robert Frost to get some idea of how big a figure José Martí plays in the cultural imagination of Cuba.

Just as we reached the square surrounding the Parque José Martí, we noticed dozens of people on cell phones, tablets, and laptops. It turns out that we were there just a couple of days after wi-fi hotspots arrived in Cuba. We saw lots of happy people that Sunday afternoon connecting with family in other locations.

Rick took this photo of two women taking advantage of the newly available wi-fi.

This church, Catedral de la Purísima Concepción, was built in the mid-19th century and sits on the main square of Cienfuegos.

This pretty and unusual cupola tops the Palacio Ferrer, also on the main square of Cienfuegos.

After lunch, we listened to a very talented choir, Canticus Novus. They performed mostly classical pieces, but our group got a kick out of hearing “across the wide Missouri” in Spanish accents when they sang “Shenandoah” for us.

We heard the choir in a meeting room at the back of the Museo Provincial, also on the main square of Cienfuegos. During the concert, we were startled to hear water dropping — it turned out the back of the room was open to the elements and it had started to rain.

I took a photo, from inside, of the mediopunto stained glass window. According to DK Eyewitness Travel Cuba:

These half-moon, stained-glass windows were created in the mid-18th century to protect houses from the glare of the tropical sun. p. 25

The mediopunto window was a common feature of the colonial architecture of Cuba.

Rick took this photo of all those people who were enjoying the wi-fi earlier when they took refuge under a porch and awnings from the rain.

A photo of Rick as he was taking the photo above, just before we boarded the bus to ride from Cienfuegos to Trinidad, Cuba. I took this because his shirt matched the building! 

At the request of Haralee, I’ll post photos of food in Cuba next week for Saturday Snapshot.

Here are my Cuba posts, so far:

• Photos of Entering Cuba
• Book review of Cuban Revelations by Marc Frank
• Photos of the Palacio de Valle
• Book review of Our Man in Havana by Graham Greene

Check out West Metro Mommy Reads today for more Saturday Snapshots.