And now in Havana the celebrations were so exuberant, once we made our way into the city’s passenger ship terminal, that the currency exchange booth clerk and I shouted at each other in Spanish through the glass.
A lone protest motorboat had chugged around with “Democracia” painted in defiant red along the hull, but that was all. cruise ship to dock in Cuba in nearly four decades might fire up anti-Castro hostilities. None of us had known what to expect as we left Miami on Sunday afternoon, there’d been speculation that the first U.S.
On warm evenings Cubans always populate the Malecón, but this was something new-nine in the morning, and crowds seemed to have gathered, lofting flags of their own, waving. Now we could make out the Malecón, the seawall and walkway that serves as a collective front porch for people seeking fresh air or respite from overcrowded households. Somebody handed out little Cuban and American flags. The ship’s topmost deck was jammed with television crews the rest of us mashed up against the railings on the next deck down.
