PHOTO POST : Havana, Cuba

I went to Cuba a few years back. I went legally, through a great group called Insight Cuba. I bought my visa, flew from Miami and was only allowed to see Havana and a little planned, eco-village community called Las Terrazas.

I spent nine days in Havana. I could have spent 39. Las Terrazas, on the other hand, had a staged-scene, almost Creepy-Disney quality to it. Too clean. Too well kept. Too Communist Manifesto, where the tattered corners of the proverbial pamphlet maybe have been chopped off for looking too shabby.

But … oh, Havana … you tug a soul with the beautiful sadness and appeal of an orphan tugging a skirt hem. There’s both desperate want in Havana and a square-jaw defiance.

“I wasn’t allowed to change, so I’ve chosen immortality,” she says. The cigar smoke moves to the music of classical Spanish guitar in a brow-beaten cobblestone square.

I hope we all go to ground long before you, Havana.

Such style, elegance, and joie de vive grown out of such incredible hardship certainly deserves to outlive our shoddy, plastic contributions to the planet.

If you are American and interested in traveling to Cuba, check out Cuba Travel Network. They are the only outfitter offering individual tours at this time.

I also adamantly suggest taking medical supplies and art supplies in your luggage. Both are greatly appreciated and desperately needed by the locals.