It is hard to tell whether the gravel in the streets of old Havana is from the building crumbling or being restored, or some of both. It is a gem of a city with quaint narrow "old world" pedestrian only streets, wide boulevards, museums, churches, art galleries, craft markets and a lot of life.

Through a contact a couple of us had a chance to visit Radio Havana. Part of the story is how normal it is: they do programming on news, sports and entertainment and broadcast in a half-dozen languages (Spanish, English, French, Arabic, Creole, Esperanto). Prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union, their signal was relayed around the world. Now their reach is not so far. The Pope’s visit was the most exciting recent event and kept them all very busy for a while.

One of my last visit was to Humberto Valdes-Rios, one of the senior planners for Cuba transportation plan. The gist of conversation is that bike are still a priority and a number of new programs are being developed to reinforce that. A more extensive report on this topic is on the International Bicycle Fund’s Web site at www.ibike.org.