The Malecon at 3am

Havana, Cuba

A little slice of Gay Habana shows up every night on the Malecon - directly across from the gas station that, Im pretty sure, sells more 2 peso bottles of rum than anything else.  It all feels very high school - drinking rum out of plastic cups, dodging the police.  Only you knew it was different.  One night I saw people being handcuffed and taken away in a truck.  Though no one wanted to talk about why.  And the longer you hang out the more you realize that no interaction lasts long without a monetary exchange.  That sounds like a very bleak depiction of what was overall a very fun experience.  But what was for me just a big party, was a days work for many of those Cuban hoping to score with a tourist.  While for others, it was something else entirely.  Like many of my experiences in foreign countries, the sense that I'm missing the big picture was behind every interaction - making the whole thing much more interesting... and a little bit dangerous.


I thought these guys were young hustlers, but they werre actually priests in training. Spreading the word between renditions of Mariah Carey songs.  Hmmmmm