Back in 2019, I gave myself a very special birthday gift. Not a thing. Not a party. It was a journey. One that was long, complicated, uncertain… but deeply transformative. I traveled all the way to Cabo de San Antonio, the westernmost tip of Cuba, a place few people know, and even fewer dare to reach.
The journey wasn’t easy. The route was unfamiliar to me, and transportation options were limited. But that only made it more meaningful. There’s something magnetic about distant, forgotten places; something that pulls at you when you’re searching for silence, for space, for truth. Armed with my Nikon D300s and the classic 80-200mm, I ventured out, driven more by instinct than by any concrete plan.
The photos I’m sharing today are just fragments of that experience. The crashing waves, the stillness of a hidden beach in María la Gorda, the simplicity of rural life captured on a horse drawn cart, these are images of a world that still resists. A world untouched, unfiltered, where nature dictates the rhythm.
María la Gorda was a treasure on its own. Turquoise waters, absolute silence, and a rich marine life that made it feel like another planet. You could stand there for hours, saying nothing, thinking nothing: just breathing.
Now, years later, I look at these pictures and smile. Not out of nostalgia, but because of the brutal contrast between what I was capable of back then and what I can do today. I laugh at my technical mistakes, my hesitant compositions, my rushed decisions… but I’m grateful. That version of me, the 2019 me, is the foundation of who I’ve become.
This wasn’t just a photography trip. It was a search. For myself. For my voice. For my freedom.
