In pictures: 10 days in Cuba

Children are at the heart of Cuba’s shaped character. There are no kids left alone. Seeing happy children felt like we were at the right place. Photograph: Georgia Korossi/11polaroids

Old town Havana: Habana Vieja Photograph: Georgia Korossi/11polaroids

Monday morning on Habana Vieja’s Obispo street Photograph: Georgia Korossi/11polaroids

Fruits shopping in Habana Vieja Photograph: Georgia Korossi/11polaroids

Avocados Photograph: Georgia Korossi/11polaroids

Habana street, Havana Photograph: Georgia Korossi/11polaroids

Untitled Photograph: Georgia Korossi/11polaroids

American author Ernest Hemingway’s love for dogs was so enormous that he buried his beloved pets Black, Negrita, Linda and Neron in the garden of his house in Cuba. Finca Vigía (Lookout Farm), is a 15-acre property 15 miles east of Havana. He lived there from mid 1939, first renting it and then buying it in 1940. At Finca Vigía Hemingway wrote most of For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940) and The Old Man and the Sea (1951). The house, designed and filled with a magnificent taste for floor tiles and chairs alongside works of arts, is now a museum. We were greeted by its staff and the garden’s wildlife of exotic flowers, hummingbirds and other visitors like this friendly dog pictured here. Photograph: Georgia Korossi/11polaroids

Hemingway’s desk and typewriter in the tower of Finca Vigía Photograph: Georgia Korossi/11polaroids

Industria street, Havana Photograph: Georgia Korossi/11polaroids

We were on the look out for a music school. In the heart of Havana, geared with our cameras, we were an easy target. A man in his early thirties approached us and insisted on taking us to Che Guevara’s first house in Havana, where his grandmother lived. It turned out the man wanted to sell us tickets for a concert organised by this school pictured here. He said he would buy milk for his kids with the ticket sale commission money. The building was huge with a wide staircase leading up to an open space surrounded by high sealing rooms and a square courtyard in the middle. There, the stage was ready for the night’s concert.

Photograph: Georgia Korossi/11polaroids

Our first ride with one of the bicycle taxis. Everywhere in Havana you hear the question, “Taxi?” and rumours has it that taxi drivers earn more than doctors in Cuba. Taken onboard one of the bicitaxis, this picture froze the moment when this man went to buy his sandwich at one of the street cafes. Photograph: Georgia Korossi/11polaroids

Cuba’s diversity is triumphant but gender equality and women’s confidence prevail in every corner of Havana’s streets.

Photograph: Georgia Korossi/11polaroids

Taxi driver Photograph: Georgia Korossi/11polaroids

Hotel Nacional de Cuba peacock Photograph: Georgia Korossi/11polaroids

Cuba’s internet provider, Etecsa, is impossible to access. There’re only a few designated hotels where you can buy WiFi or telecommunication centres like Telepunto, Cuba’s equivalent to BT, and can only be used within a distance of 100 metres from the actual building. These girls here are not online, what we’re so used to seeing in the Western world. They’re playing a digital game on their smart phone. Photograph: Georgia Korossi/11polaroids

An afternoon wondering around the streets of Havana Photograph: Georgia Korossi/11polaroids

Castillo de San Salvador de la Punta Photograph: Georgia Korossi/11polaroids

We arrived in Trinidad, central Cuba, late on Thursday evening to find this preserved sixteenth-century town. Photograph: Georgia Korossi/11polaroids

It was a thunderous night with constant lightning strikes. Photograph: Georgia Korossi/11polaroids

Nail salon Photograph: Georgia Korossi/11polaroids

Playa Ancon, Trinidad Photograph: Georgia Korossi/11polaroids

Café Don Pepe, Trinidad Photograph: Georgia Korossi/11polaroids

Trinidad: grocery through the shutters Photograph: Georgia Korossi/11polaroids

Fish out of water in Trinidad Photograph: Georgia Korossi/11polaroids

New York rooster Photograph: Georgia Korossi/11polaroids

Shoemaker, town of Trinidad, Cuba Photograph: Georgia Korossi/11polaroids

Photograph: Georgia Korossi/11polaroids

Trinidad is close to the beach and mountains in the southern corner of Sancti Spíritus. Photograph: Georgia Korossi/11polaroids

Night falls in Trinidad (UNESCO-declared world heritage site) Photograph: Georgia Korossi/11polaroids

When visiting a foreign country it’s always worth travelling outside the big cities. Cuba’s countryside is vast and gorgeous. Farmers are going about their daily lives but there was something honest about this man we found on our way from Trinidad back to Havana. Photograph: Georgia Korossi/11polaroids

Casa Vitrales, Havana

Handball is a popular game in the streets of Havana when the sun sets. Photograph: Georgia Korossi/11polaroids

Photograph: Georgia Korossi/11polaroids

Night shift: bookshop in Havana

Sleepy feline, Havana Photograph: Georgia Korossi/11polaroids

Fidel Castro in conversation Photograph: Georgia Korossi/11polaroids