By Olivia P. Tallet From Houston Chronicle

The Caribbean’s most enigmatic island is a cultural, visual feast

Welcome to Cuba, my native land: a place where time seems out of joint and where all the old certainties are jumbled.

Surprises confront first-time visitors from the moment they leave Havana’s airport. Yes, there are images of Che Guevara and Camilo Cienfuegos, together with Fidel Castro: the triumvirate of the Cuban revolution. While corporate advertising is scarce, political propaganda still appears; similar visual displays have disappeared in other countries. Of course, Cuba’s communism was never the grim Soviet system. Ours was a tropical invention, spiked with salsa and humor, Cubans’ best survival tool.

On the island, amid the colonial architecture and 1950s cars, you enter another dimension. You’ve seen photos of scenes like these, perhaps in a book or movie, but are you really seeing them now?

Habana Vieja, or Old Havana, where the country’s capital was born, is one of seven UNESCO World Heritage sites in Cuba. Many buildings there have been restored to their full splendor, but others are vivid testaments to time, crumbling into ruins, untouched. For centuries the city was the main port of entrance to Spain’s New World colonies. Zigzagging through the narrow, stone-paved streets, you see the beauty and fortitude of colonial mansions and military fortresses built to defend Havana from pirate attacks and foreign invasions.

The turkey burger with tomato jam, green goddess dressing and arugula at The Company Burger. Eating and drinking along New Orleans’ new restaurant row Saks Fifth Avenue showcased gala-ready gowns for Mardi Gras in Galveston. Five fashion trends to try for a glam Mardi Gras this year Cajun accordionist Ryan Brunet and other musicians dressed in traditional costumes play for a Courir de Mardi Gras. For genuine Mardi Gras experience, consider heading to Acadiana Reflective palm plunge swimsuit, $60 at asos.com. Fabulous finds with palm prints for an early spring Left: Murry Penner’s clothing store M Penner celebrates its 40th anniversary this year. it was founded by his father, Morris Penner.

Castles border the Havana seawall, and state-of-the-art cruise ships pass nearby. Kids of all colors dive into the water from the reef where their elders are fly-fishing for dinner. Nearby, a trio of guitar players sings a serenade. A few feet from them, a man reclines on the breakwater meditating, his face fixed on the horizon, intent on whatever it is that his headphones are emitting. Music is our collective catharsis, our national therapy.

It’s no accident that Cuba is the birthplace of genres such as the Salsa, Son, Mambo, Chachachá, Rumba, Conga and Cuban Latin Jazz. Instead of despairing, we dance.

The “mejunje,” we call it: the mixture. In Cuba, diversity is an understatement. We are “un mejunje,” a multicolor human concoction that has produced a strong Latin American culture.

On the seawall, couples exchange sea-salty kisses. Women dressed all in white wet their feet; they are worshipping Yemayá, the Santería deity that rules over the sea. Then, at the nearby Catedral de La Habana, the same women kneel before altars to Jesús Cristo or La Virgen María.

In the ’40s and ’50s, Ernest Hemingway was the celebrity who drank mojitos five steps away, at La Bodeguita del Medio. Nowadays it’s Madonna, Beyoncé, Natalie Portman or Chanel’s Karl Lagerfeld. Katy Perry said that Cuba has “one of the coolest vibes alive.”

Celebrities also come to the island for cigars. At the historic Partagás Factory in Centro Habana, visitors watch the “torcedores” roll cured “colorados,” dark-blonde, spicy, oily leaves; it’s practically an obligatory stop. But it’s hardly the only exceptional cigar place that feels stuck in the first half of the 20th century, when the island was the entertainment back yard of wealthy Americans.

Connoisseurs and those who enjoy the outdoors travel to the exuberantly beautiful Valle de Viñales, the valley about two and a half hours from Havana, where tobacco is grown and cured. In Spanish, a cigar is a “puro”: pure nature.

Even nature seems vintage, full of ecosystems barely touched by modernity. Cuba, the largest nation in the Caribbean Sea, includes 4,000 islands and cays. Scuba divers prize Jardines de la Reina Marine Park, nicknamed as “The Galapagos of the Caribbean,” on the southeast side of Cuba. It’s known for its diverse and abundant sharks. To protect it, a limited number of visitors are admitted each year.

Cuba is like a bottle of wine found at the bottom of the Caribbean Sea. The taste is familiar and strange, too complex to decipher quickly. Give it time. And enjoy.

IMAGE: Pigeons take off from Plaza Vieja Monday, Jan. 16, 2017 in Havana. ( Michael Ciaglo / Houston Chronicle ) Photo: Michael Ciaglo

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