Burnt garbage, sewage, lack of cleanliness: finding a treat for your nose is a difficult task these days in Cuba
14ymedio, Yoani Sánchez, Havana, March 7, 2026 — I take a mint leaf from the balcony and squeeze it between my fingers before adding it to the water I am going to drink. On my hands lingers a fresh and hopeful aroma. Entertaining the nose is a difficult task these times we are living in, in Cuba. The country’s collapse smells of burning garbage, sewage water, and a lack of cleanliness. Every pleasant scent is a rare and invaluable reward for the senses
It’s four in the morning and I jump out of bed. The electricity has returned after a blackout that began the previous afternoon. As soon as I get up, I head to the rooftop. My two dogs, the stars, and me. The city sleeps, and I scan the horizon. Havana no longer smells the same. At this hour, I’m hit by the stench of the garbage that piles up everywhere, and from the nearby Zoo on 26th Street, I hear the desperate roar of a lion. It must be hungry.
When I was a girl and would visit my relatives in the small towns of Villa Clara and Cienfuegos, when I returned to the capital the smell would hit me. This city always had a particular aroma. The manufactured gas service installed in many homes, the countless vehicles that traveled its streets, and the waters of the bay mixed with the oil that spilled into it, made the place where I was born and raised smell of industrial oils and tar. I never thought I would miss that stench.
Even the money smells of misery. It has a musty stench, as if it had been stored in a dark, filthy cave.
Havana now has another “olfactory signature.” A doorway I used to pass through when walking along Reina Street in Central Havana has become a public urinal that makes me hold my breath whenever I walk by. from the Ultra store wafts a stench, the foul odor of abandonment. The city is dotted with these places that once closed their doors and began to decay rapidly. Large markets, banks, cinemas, and motels that used to smell of freshly brewed coffee, fried food, and air conditioning now only exude a foul odor.
Even the money smells of misery. It has a musty stench, as if it had been stored in a dark, filthy cave. People line up for hours in front of ATMs to withdraw a little cash. Often the machine breaks down or shuts down due to a power outage before customers can get their hands on those devalued, colorful bonds that make up the national currency.
Those with more resources pay for the money. Buying pesos has become, for many, the only way to have cash in hand. But what you get is a mess of dirty paper. A friend told me that in the country where he lives, they put some euros in a lab and found traces of drugs, feces, and saliva. I fantasize about someone taking a sample of Cuban pesos to be analyzed. The results wouldn’t surprise me.
Miasmas have taken over the entire spectrum of smells wherever we go
The 1,000-peso note, bearing the face of Julio Antonio Mella, might have traces of gasoline, of perfume and of the liquid that oozes from a box of chicken quarters as it begins to thaw. The 200-peso note, with the image of Frank País, will surely show traces of vegetable oil, tears, and horse manure from the many coachmen who ferry passengers here and there in Cuba’s nearly paralyzed cities. The piece of paper, with its red tones and the face of Ernesto Che Guevara, would bear the marks of a past when it served to pay for something that cost up to three pesos. A remote time when, on the streets of Old Havana, this paper with the guerrilla fighter’s stern expression would be offered to tourists, who came en masse to see this dilapidated social experiment in which we live.
But nowthe money smells like poverty. It also smells of the bureaucratic offices, the once air-conditioned premises of the powerful telecommunications monopoly Etecsa, and even the lobbies of the ministries all feel the same. A miasma has taken over the entire spectrum of smells wherever we go. The elevator in my building smells like urine. At the nearby clinic, someone has sprayed disinfectant to mask the pervasive smell of disease and filth. The dental office no longer exudes that mixture of antiseptics and dental materials.
I press my nose to my armpit. After a whole morning of walking, I too smell like Havana, a combination of hardship and despair.
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Chronicles:
The Death Throes of ‘Granma’, the Mouthpiece of a Regime Cornered by Crisis
The Anxiety of the Disconnected Cuban
One Mella, Three Mellas, Life in Cuba Is Measured in Thousands of Pesos
It Is Forbidden To Leave Home in Cuba Today Because It Is a “Counter-Revolutionary Day”
Vedado, the Heart of Havana’s Nightlife, Is Now Converted Into a Desert
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