Tourism, once the country’s main source of income, has fallen by more than half in the past decade. This is partly because of COVID-19, which shut down public life for nearly two years. But, even before then, tourists were deterred by sanctions imposed by President Donald Trump and by an increasing ambience of decline. During a recent visit, I found the once jammed neighborhood of Old Havana nearly empty, except for a handful of hustlers glumly hawking cut-price cigars, rum, and sex. Homeless men lay slumped on the sidewalks. Outside La Bodeguita del Medio, which was once patronized by Pablo Neruda and Ernest Hemingway, a pair of elderly women in colorful dresses and head wraps stood with cigars in their mouths, watching for Americans they could bully into paying to pose with them for photographs. One of them, manhandling a middle-aged tourist, made a lewd offer—“I’ll suck it if you want, papi”—as his friend snapped a pic.journey-inline-newsletterinline-newsletter