Cuba’s pulse is the baseball strikes of children playing in the streets with patched, old balls.

Cuba’s pulse is the shots of impromptu football matches.

Cuba’s pulse is the incessant roar of the waves against the Malecon; for 500 years tormenting Havana’s face, an old mistress still whimsically beautiful.

Cuba’s pulse is the heavy engine of a car from a time left in sepia, witnesses of a glittering past and a present waiting to be scrapped.

Cuba’s pulse is the tough peasant scraping what best they can from the earth with gestures unchanged by time. it is in the steady clop of horses' hooves echoing across country lanes.

Cuba’s pulse is marked by harmony and melody; the rhythm of Son and the dark deep energy of ancestral Rumba .

Cuba’s pulse is in the syncopated beat of reggeton, the beat of youth and hope and dreams for those who cannot or have not yet been able to fly.

The reportrage is published in the Italian National Geographic. Story and photos by Grif.

Click photos to enlarge.