Havana – Feria de la Artesania

Despite the deprivations of the US trade embargo and the general poverty of the country, there are still a horde of people willing to sell you all manner of tourist related crap, I mean arts and crafts. The main meeting people for tourists and tat sellers is the artists fair – the F Feria de la Artesania.

The market operates most of the week on the eastern side of the Old Town. It runs along the edge of the fort and a park. It’s jammed tight with people selling all manner of junk. There’s a whole lot of Cuban army hats – with red or white stars, you decide. There’s also a whole lot of carved wood, beads and strange things made out of soft drink cans. Interesting stuff. This sort of stuff really doesn’t interest me. It’s usually pretty low quality and serve no useful purpose at all.

A lot more interesting, is the local painters. The fair is three rows of stalls. The row next to the park is all paintings. I must admit, I was quite impressed. There was a lot of unique, very distinctive pictures. Cuban art has a reputation for being very vibrant and interesting. This market confirmed that. There were a lot of tourist friendly pictures of ladies with large breasts, but luckily they weren’t all like that.

I was so impressed, I bought a couple of paintings. They were nicely detailed paintings of the distinctive Havana cars driving along the Malecón in a rainstorm. There were some sweet old men manning the stalls who helped me choose the pics. In addition, the painter himself was there. Bonus!

I really enjoyed walking along the art section of the market. There was just so much good stuff on display. While it’s wasn’t dirt cheap, for the size and quality on offer, it was excellent value.