A tour of Brisas del Mar, a residential neighborhood in Havana del Este in the Guanabo area, reveals a landscape of empty streets, destroyed homes, and dirty beaches that content creator Sisi Aguilera described this week as another ghost town in Cuba.
The video, filmed during a visit to the site, captures what was once a vibrant vacation destination—especially in the summer—and now appears frozen in time. Most of the homes were vacation houses where Cuban families spent their holidays; now, they are destroyed, closed, or completely abandoned.
"When you walk through these streets, you feel that there is no life. Everything is silent. There are very few inhabited houses left. Living here must feel incredibly sad," Aguilera recounted during the tour.
Throughout the entire walk, the author did not encounter a single person. "Honestly, it's even a bit frightening to walk through these deserted streets," she admitted.
Among the most striking images of the journey is a ruined house by the river, surrounded by a landscape that Aguilera herself described as beautiful. "Seeing something so lovely in this state is a huge waste," she remarked.
Brisas del Mar is not an isolated case. The neighboring area of Boca Ciega, in Havana del Este, was documented in March with over 100 vacant houses, collapsed structures, vandalism, and invasive vegetation, many of which are tourist chalets confiscated by the State in the 1960s that have never received maintenance.
The pattern repeats itself in other regions of the country. Isabela de Sagua, in Villa Clara, was documented last year with corroded docks and deserted streets. Cayo La Rosa, in Artemisa, which had a factory, an airport, and a hospital before 1959, is now a collection of ruins following the closure of its textile factory in the 90s. And Bejucal, in Mayabeque, was shown in February with deteriorated buildings amid power outages and fuel shortages.
Behind this depopulation lies a structural crisis: an unprecedented migratory exodus—Cuba lost over 500,000 people between 2022 and 2024 according to international estimates—power outages of up to twenty hours a day, shortages of food and medicine, and decades of institutional neglect. The housing deficit on the island exceeds 850,000 units, and in the past year, only about 16,000 homes were built, which is 65% of what was planned.
Aguilera summed up what he observed with a conclusion that goes beyond Brisas del Mar: "It's so sad to see how many towns and places in my country are slowly dying. It's no longer just a specific area. Abandonment is becoming widespread throughout all of Cuba."
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