Lights out, crowds gone: Havana waits for what comes next⁣ ⁣ Once a byword for joyful excess, Havana has been hollowed by blackouts, departures and deep uncertainty about its future. There are so few cars in Cuba's capital that it is possible to cross the Malecon, the once bustling seafront promenade, without looking.⁣ ⁣ At night, the narrow cobbled streets of Old Havana are enveloped in inky black, devoid of power and virtually deserted. After a seven-month-long US fuel embargo and rolling power cuts, locals joke that they are sick of seeing the stars.⁣ ⁣ Cuba has experienced many crises since then -- sanctions, hurricanes, a pandemic and the collapse of the Soviet bloc. But this latest grinding crisis has transformed the sights, sounds and smells of Old Havana entirely.⁣ ⁣ The invigorating brass or woody bass of salsa, son and cha-cha-cha are all but gone.⁣ ⁣ Instead, the humid silence is punctuated by the diesel generators, the occasional Bluetooth speaker or the tinny buzzing of a ...