Havana

Four months after Cienfuegos, I flew back — Boston to Charlotte to Havana on American Airlines. This time the capital city.

Havana was everything Cienfuegos had hinted at, turned up to eleven. The Malecón at sunset, Old Havana’s cobblestoned streets, the music coming from every doorway. The 1950s American cars weren’t props — they were the actual transportation infrastructure, held together with improvisation and stubbornness.

Two trips to Cuba in four months sealed it as one of the most memorable countries I’d visited. Not because it was easy or comfortable, but because it was so completely itself.