PART TWO - First Two Days in Havana

After two days in the springboard country of the Bahamas, I obtained a travel visa to put in my passport and leave for Havana, Cuba. One of the most memorable experiences was being selected out of the crowd at the airport before boarding the plane, escorted to the middle of the room and asked to drop my bag. A drug-sniffing dog (a beagle) sniffed it over and, thank goodness, there weren't any remnants in a knapsack that had been used by several other people in the past, so I lucked out and was allowed to board the plane. I so happened to see one of the younger Cuban TSA guards several times in Havana looking at me from a distance.
Anyway! The US cars and taxis were mostly from the 1950s and 60s due to the trade embargo with the USA following the Cuban Missile Crisis, and they were gorgeous. The Cubans were very resilient and had learned to repair everything, but where they found parts I have no idea. It was common to see citizens carrying alternators down the street, or tires for cars, bikes, and motorcycles, or pumps to use for plumbing in their homes. An entire generation had learned how to survive without anything at all imported from the United States anymore.
What used to be considered as beautiful as Miami, the Havana architecture was slowly deteriorating over decades of sun and wind and rain, and what was once beautiful hotels and businesses, now in ruins, housed families in whatever rooms and homes they could obtain and build within.
I stayed in a room of the home of a guy named Rolley, someone a friend in Key West had fixed me up with. His family was fantastically gracious and hospitable. Internet was still illegal there, but Rolley's son in his 20's knew a way to connect via their phone line. (We’re still friends on Facebook.)
Cuba is communist/socialist by definition, but far more capitalistic in the streets than America is via the Black Market. As you walk the busy streets with other tourists from around the world, you're confronted by aggressive hustlers offering you cab rides, rooms, rum, drugs, Cuban cigars, and girls. Watch out for grifters and pickpockets! (I accepted a couple of things but I'll get to that in the next video).
I spent the first few days in Havana walking the streets for miles in different directions, loving the music and food everywhere. I walked a few miles on the Malecon shoreline facing toward the north to my home in Key West, watching the young boys swimming in the ocean.