Calzada del Cerro
Out from the centre of Havana an axis runs to the coast lined with former creole palaces. It followed the route of an aqueduct. In 1861 a covered walkway was built to join these buildings, to create a single colonnaded street running seven miles. The palaces and fine houses are largely derelict. The former grand porcelain-tiled entrances and reception halls have been taken over by businesses, often doubling as living rooms. One formerly grand reception room off the colonnade is lined with fish tanks; the family does a lively trade in tiny minnows sold in plastic bags for under a US cent each. At the back is the young family's living room space, part of which has no roof. The exquisite tiled floor has disintegrated into rubble. The courtyard has the remnants of rooms off it, all stacked to the ceiling with green glowing fish-breeding tanks. A few houses up is the home of a Santeria priest. His family's living room is also a voodoo clinic, the TV doubling up as a shrine. On another site a palace has collapsed entirely leaving a vast deep waste ground in front of which a billboard has been erected sporting a lurid red Che Guevara proclaiming: 'Revolution is: Sacrifice, Altruism, Solidarity, Heroism.'