Travel Tip #92…Look Down

How many photos of cobblestones can you take?

Maybe just one more.

In Cuba I was enamored with the cars. I couldn’t get enough of them, and when I thought maybe I had reached my fill, another beauty came around the corner.

I don’t even like cars.

When my son was 12, his friend could identify make, model and year of any oncoming vehicle from ¼ mile away. I would look and say, “Oh, wow…there’s another blue one.”

But Cuba’s cars were mesmerizing. Faded glory…some cobbled together with baling twine and bubble gum, and others lovingly cared for and paraded along the capital square. I was in a photographic trance and couldn’t not press the shutter button.

I didn’t think it could happen again, until I saw Old San Juan’s cobblestones.

Oh, my.

The ages and oxidation have made them blue(ish). Called adoquines, they were cast into bricks from iron slag in Spanish foundries and carried in ships as ballast.

Lined in perfect grids outside the governor’s palace, or twisted into serpentine patterns in the more forgotten corners, the cobbles draw the eye and challenge the ankle.

How so many cobblestones live in apparent harmony with so many high heels is a mystery to me.

There are patterns everywhere. Look down. Look up. Pay attention to your step. When they pave the world in asphalt it will be smoother, but I will be sad.