Jarring photo of Air Force One flying over Cuba displays a virtual time warp
President Barack Obama touched down in Cuba on Sunday, becoming the first sitting US president since Calvin Coolidge in 1928 to visit the island nation.
Obama announced in 2014 that the US would normalize relations with Cuba, ending the decades-long freeze between the two nations and setting the stage for an official presidential visit this year.
Soon before the president and the US delegation touched down in Cuba, Reuters captured this picture of Air Force One flying over a neighborhood in Havana:
The photo captured the unique developmental situation that Cuba has found itself in since the US severed ties with Cuba in 1961.
The vintage cars in the photo are common in Cuba, which for much of the past 50 years saw a trade embargo with the US and other Western nations.
American companies were barred from doing business in Cuba in 1962, after the Castro regime came to power. The regime was too poor to import significant numbers of new cars from its allies in Europe and Asia, meaning that many Cubans' cars are still pre-embargo, American-made relics.