We’re on our way back from a week in Cuba — a country just 100 miles off the Florida coast but one that feels like it exists in an entirely different century.
We began our trip in Viñales, a stunning but rugged part of western Cuba where we spent three days biking through red-dirt farmland on roads so cratered they made New York City potholes look small.
Because U.S. citizens technically can’t stay in Cuban hotels — all of which are owned by the government — we stayed in a local home, giving us a rare and humbling look at daily life under a regime where scarcity is the norm. The power was rarely working and generators could never quite keep up. There was no internet access.
We toured a tobacco farm, ate some good meals at paladares (privately run restaurants), and were constantly reminded of how resourceful Cubans have become in the face of so many constraints.
At one point, our trip leaders “accidentally” broke the clutch on our bus — only for us to be rescued by a caravan of 1950s-era American cars, their chrome somehow still gleaming. It was a scene straight out of a movie, and one of the most memorable parts of the trip.
Then came Havana, a city of haunting beauty. If you squint, you can still see the grandeur that once was: Spanish colonial architecture, colorful facades, sweeping boulevards.
But decades of neglect have left many buildings crumbling. It feels like walking through a city paused in time — not preserved like a museum, but weathered like a ghost town.
Cuba is a country shaped by two forces: the chokehold of the U.S. embargo and the self-inflicted wounds of its own government policies.
The result is decay everywhere — a place where an enormous amount of wealth and opportunity has simply evaporated over the last 65 years because of very poor choices.
So what did I miss at home?
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