Trip to Cuba

 

To go straight to the information about my visit to Cuba and view photos, scroll past the information about the Soviet Union. First, I describe what prompted me to visit Cuba in the first place.

I’m not sure why, but I have a strange fascination with communism and communist countries. While I was in college, studying abroad in London, I had a chance to visit the Soviet Union on a guided tour for students. I asked my parents about it and they weren’t opposed to it, but they thought it seemed like a strange place to visit, and they were right. As students, we had been told that the young people of the Soviet Union desperately wanted American items, especially blue jeans. We were on a very strict government operated tour, so for the most part we saw only what they wanted us to see. The guide answered our questions with the answers the Soviet government would want us to hear. Early in the trip, I met a guy and traded a pair of jeans for a really cool Russian military-style coat and he shared about his experience with oppression and poverty. He told me that he would give 20 years of his life to see America for 20 minutes. Then we met some black market traders, who were basically criminals. They had a lot of money. There would be a very long line for people to get into a store and they would go to the front, bribe the lady at the door, and come out with bottles of Russian vodka. They took us to an incredible restaurant, which was great because the food in the cafeteria on our tour was terrible. Every night seemed to be some mystery boiled meat and beets or potatoes. We were thrilled with the VIP treatment we got from our “friends.” On our last night in town, they took us to a disco. While we were on the dance floor, they robbed us of every penny we had. We shouldn’t have been surprised … we got what we deserved for hanging out with criminals. I left the Soviet Union even more intrigued with communism.

St. Basil's Cathedral in 

Red Square in Moscow

The Kremlin

Leningrad

My friend Misha

Our Black Market Trader "friends"

The fancy Russian restaurant 
they treated us to

Taken just before they robbed us.

We stupidly thought they were 
genuine friends.

Like the rest of the world, I watched as the Berlin Wall came down in 1989. In 1990, I had a hippie landlady who has been to Cuba in its heyday pre-revolution and her take was right in line with the propaganda of Fidel Castro. Her perception was that the Cuban people were very happy and that education and health care were free and it was a wonderful place. She believed that Cubans had a great life.

Later I read a book, a true story about a man and his son’s attempt to flee Cuba on a handmade raft – sailing the 90 miles from Havana to Key West, Florida, where he hoped to be free of oppression of his home country. He made it, but his son didn’t. I was fascinated about a place that would drive its people to risk their lives to escape.

Since then, Cuba has always been in the back of my mind. It was illegal for U.S. citizens to visit Cuba. Canadians and other foreigners could come and go, but we could not. Rumor was that an American citizen could fly from Canada (or somewhere in the Caribbean) and go to Cuba and they just wouldn’t stamp your passport. I was tempted, but my husband, Bill, is a rule follower and there was no talking him into blatantly breaking the law by visiting a communist country.

After ruling Cuba for almost 50 years, Fidel Castro stepped down in 2008, turning over power to his brother Raul, but it didn’t look like much would change.

When Barack Obama was elected, he eased some of the restrictions around Cubans in the U.S. being able to visit family and send financial support. In 2015, he announced plans to open diplomatic ties with Cuba again, and in March of 2016 he and the First Lady made a historic visit to Havana, and the U.S. embassy in Cuba is now open again for the first time in 54 years.

All of a sudden everyone in the travel industry was talking about Cuba and the reality that Americans were soon going to be able to enter and visit Cuba legally. Of course, being a communist country, there were going to be rules ... a lot of rules.

American tour operators would have to partner with Cuba tour companies, and the itinerary would be tightly controlled. This type of group trip for Americans would be called a People to People program.

Basically, this meant that every travel itinerary had to include a full-time schedule of educational exchange activities, including interactions with Cuba's musicians, artists, naturalists and new generation of entrepreneurs. The focus was to be more on culture than just tourism.

To confuse things, the rules are changing constantly. For example, Americans now don’t have to travel with a group, but they do have to make arrangements with a local tour company and the same People to People requirements apply with a few exceptions.

As soon as I became aware that I could travel to Cuba, I was over the moon with excitement. The opportunities were few at first, but they increased. The problem for me is that most of the tours were between 7 - 10 days. Our cell phones don’t work in Cuba and Internet is really iffy and unreliable, so I knew as a travel agent (whose main priority is taking care of my clients, especially when they are traveling) there was no way I could be unplugged for that long.

The trips were also expensive – very expensive. It’s hard to imagine how traveling to a Caribbean island 90 miles away from the U.S. could cost so much, but it all has to do with the regulations around it. You can’t book a flight or a hotel to Cuba on your own. It all has to come through the People to People program. I didn’t know how or when, but I knew I would be visiting Cuba, before the embargo was lifted for good. Just as I had visited the Soviet Union while it was still a communist country, I wanted to visit Cuba before the embargo was fully and there was a McDonalds on every corner.

Cuba 2016

After reading about the Cuba tour options for more than a year, and ruling out the reality of me going for a full week with no Internet, I wasn’t sure I was going to get there, but I remained determined.

Then I received an email about an opportunity for travel agents to go to Cuba for three nights over Memorial Day weekend. I didn’t hesitate! This was my chance to go for a quick trip, and I jumped at it.

The flights in and out of Cuba from Miami are operated by American and American Eagle, but you have to have the charter ticket booked through a Cuban tour company. I flew into Miami from DFW, had to exit the terminal, check-in for my charter flight and then go back through security to the gate. Note that the gate was just a few gates down from where I arrived, but because of the rules, I couldn’t just walk over and catch the flight. Also, I couldn’t get AAdvantage miles for the flight because it was a charter flight. (Of course I had to ask!)

Soon I was on board my flight to Havana!

It is a short 40-minute flight. Flying into Cuba looked like flying into any other island in the Caribbean, but I was about to find out just how different it was.

I didn’t check a bag, but a lot of the other people I was traveling with did. We waited and waited and waited for the bags to come out. When we asked our guide, he simply said, “Oh yeah, it takes a while.” It did, more than an hour. It was our official welcome to a communist country.

When everyone in our group finally had their bags, we loaded our mini bus and headed to the hotel.

The hotel was the NH Capri – a solid four-star hotel. I was pleasantly surprised. We had dinner in the hotel that night, as well as breakfast every day, and the food was good.

Money Matters

For the time being, credit cards and debit cards don’t work in Cuba at all. Think about that for a minute. You have to bring only cash, and if you run out, there is no way to get more cash or use your credit card as a backup.

The official currency is the Cuban Peso (CUP). This what is used by the local people. The Cuban Convertible Peso (CUC) was introduced by the Cuban financial authorities to take out all foreign currencies from circulation, and offer an alternative that is in almost all senses equal to U.S. dollars. It is supposed to be one U.S. dollar to one CUC - but they charge 13% to change your money. So if you change over $100 USD, you only get back 87 CUCs.

Everyone had the idea that Cuba would be cheap. It wasn’t. Even though most of our activities were included into our cost, it seemed like we were blowing through the CUCs pretty quickly.

Cuban Convertible Pesos 
(CUC's) currency for tourism

Cuban Pesos - convertible for locals

The Tour

Our guide, Onellio, was incredible. I’m not exactly sure what he was or was not supposed to tell us, but he was completely transparent and honest about his life, his struggles and what it was really like to live in Cuba since the revolution.

I could sit at my computer and type round the clock for the next month, and still not be able to document everything I saw and all that I learned about Cuba. But I got exactly what I wanted – an introduction to the country, the sites, the culture, the people, and an understanding of the history from someone who lived through it.

What We Did

One of the must-do activities in Cuba is to go to the Hotel Nacional and have a mojito (make mine a virgin) on the lawn overlooking the Havana harbor. The Nacional is about a block from the Capri, so we did this on the first night. It was a beautiful night, and the lawn area of the historic hotel was a great place to relax and take it all in.

The next morning we headed out for our walking tour of Old Havana. The streets, the squares and the cathedrals from the 17^th century (when Cuba was occupied by Spain) are well-preserved. The Catedral de San Cristobal was especially clean and beautiful. Our guide smiled and told us that they just finished a major renovation just in time for Obama’s visit. 

The Nacional Hotel at night

Cathedral of the Virgin Mary,
one of 11 Catholic cathedrals in Cuba

Rooftop bar in Old Town

Enjoying a tropical drink

Garden lot where an old house fell down

The Cuban flag can be seen 
flying on many buildings.

As we walked, our guide Onellio brought the rich history of the island to life with his explanations as we visited each area. Of course we visited Revolution Square. This is where the actual capitol building is located, where Fidel and Raul Castro go to work. The entire square is a monument to the revolution.

Images of Che Guevara and his revolutionary comrade Camile Cienfuegos are on government buildings, looking down upon the square. The Jose Marti memorial is to one side and quite often the old cars are here for taxi/tourist trips.

The Capitol Building

Camilo Cienfuegos on the government office building. 

The text says "Vas bien, Fidel" (You're doing fine, Fidel.)

One surprise to me was that Havana (like Rio De Janiero) has a large statue of Jesus. It is the largest statue in the world created by a woman and it is on the east side of Havana overlooking the harbor.

The Christ statue "Cristo de la Habana" 
is 51 meters above sea level.

From there, you can see the newly remodeled cruise ship terminal. Currently, there are a couple of Canadian cruise ships that dock in Cuba ,as well as the new American ship – The Fathom. (The Fathom is a very interesting concept, where you cruise to Cuba and do service projects, like mission work.) If you are interested in learning more about that, let me know. All of the other American cruise companies are trying to get permission to dock in Havana, but as of now they can’t. There are a lot of discussions about the infrastructure of Havana, and that it really can’t handle thousands of cruise passengers descending on the city all at once. I really believe that this will eventually happen, but it is going to take time.

The Cannon Ceremony

The city walls and the fortress that were built when the Spanish occupied the island in the 17^th century have been very well preserved. Every night at exactly 9:00pm, a cannon is fired. Before the blast, there is a big ceremony. The costumed drummers are members of the Cuban military (which is a pretty cushy assignment for a communist soldier). There is a lot of drumming, chanting and eventually the blast at precisely 9:00pm. This cannon goes off every night of the year and has for many, many years. The only break was during WWII because they didn’t have enough gun powder. We experienced this, along with many other tourists and locals, since it was a Saturday night.

Entrance to the courtyard surrounded 
by city walls for cannon ceremony

Beautiful sunset after the cannon went off

In the last few years, the government has opened up the country to some private businesses. The businesses must be Cuban-run. Since most Cubans are very poor, these businesses are usually owned by those with family in Miami, who send the money to start the businesses. As a result of this, several paladores, or private restaurants, have opened. The food at these restaurants was excellent – well beyond my expectations.

Because it was organized for travel agents, our visit included visits to several hotels, including Hotel Ambos Mundos, where Ernest Hemingway kept a room for many years before building his home in Cuba.

Part of the tour was visiting a couple of Hemingway’s favorite bars: La Bodequita del Medio and El Flordita, which are still very lively places, complete with live music, which is just about everywhere you go in Cuba.

One of the bars Hemingway frequented

Because we loved the music we were hearing at each restaurant, we wanted to experience more. Onellio helped us get tickets to a special musical review that covers Cuban music over the past 60 years. Some of the members of the band were well into their 70s. Those are the guys who remember the glory days of Cuba, pre-revolution, pre-Castro. The band and the singers were incredible, as well as the two dancers. It was so much better than I expected. We had bought our tickets earlier in the day from a young Cuban man. In my broken Spanish, I was asking him for a great table for the five of us in the front. He explained that the front tables are for the people who are doing the dinner before the show and it wouldn’t be possible. I tried harder to convince him, offering money. Then he looked at me and asked me if we had any chicle – chewing gum. One of the ladies in our group had an unopened package of Trident. His eyes got big, and he couldn’t stop smiling. Our table was so close to the front, we could feel the breeze when the dancer was spinning. Incredible what we were able to get for a pack of gum!

The band leader and many of the musicians have been 

performing in this show for over 40 years.

One of the dancers got a member of 

our group up on her feet to dance.

The American Cars

Some of the most memorable photos of Cuba over the years show the old American cars. These cars were brought into Cuba before the revolution. During the revolution, many people (especially the more affluent people, who owned businesses) fled Cuba with nothing more than the clothes on their back – leaving behind everything, including their car (if they had one). After the revolution, it was impossible to get American cars. (Up until 1989 they could get Russian cars, but they do not compare to the quality and style of the American cars.)

They have not been able to get the parts for these cars in decades, and yet they look brand new inside and out. Some of the convertibles are cars that used to be hard tops, and the top has been cut off ... yet you would never know it.

To own and operate one of these American Cars, which are exclusively used for taxis, is very expensive. Only Cubans who have family in the U.S. are able to maintain them. Of course, they make a lot of money from the tourists who all want to take a ride in one of these old beauties. My favorite color is pink (no surprise to anyone who knows me). I was obsessed with the pink cars and there were many of them. At first I was taking a picture of every pink car I saw – so many different shades (pale pink, hot pink, rose, blush, etc.). But there were so many pink cars, I eventually stopped, although I never got tired of seeing any of these old cars. After our Cuban musical review, the five of us took a gorgeous convertible as a taxi back to our hotel. The driver was great and he definitely took us the long way to the hotel, so we could enjoy the ride and the breeze for as long as possible.

Going Off-road

On the typical People to People tour, a visit to the beach is not really allowed. There are dozens of high-end four and five-star hotels on Veradaro Beach, but Americans are not allowed to go there. For us (at least for now), Cuba is not a fun-in-the-sun destination. I knew this, but I also knew that visiting a beach in Cuba was something I wanted to do very badly.

Once again, Onellio did not disappoint. He was able to covertly arrange a short trip for me. Vedaro Beach is two hours from Havana, so that was not possible; however, he was able to arrange for me to visit a beach called Santa Maria, about 25 minutes from Havana. It is a local beach, and he warned me that since it was Sunday, it would likely be very crowded. I'm glad I was warned. I cannot recommend this. It was a big risk and takes a very experienced and adventurous (crazy) traveler like myself.

Onellio arranged an American car for my trip. Wait for it….A PINK ONE! My driver’s name was Jesus, so I felt good about that.

I was able to slip away from the group into my 1950-something pink Chevrolet for the half hour trip to the beach. I loved every minute of it.

I only had one hour to spend at the beach, and Onellio was right ... it was very, very crowded. I had to rent a chair, and the guys in charge of that told me there were no umbrellas. They had a big thatched umbrella where they sat, so I asked if I could just leave my chair in the shade there with them. They agreed. (Thank goodness I speak just enough Spanish to get by.) They watched my stuff while I went into the water, the beautiful Caribbean Sea, which was stunning. The white sand and the crystal blue waters were exactly as I had hoped. I walked along the beach, went swimming in the waves, and reflected on the fact that I was on a beach in CUBA. I bought an orange soda from some guy selling them out of a cooler under an umbrella, sat on my chair in the shade, and tried to soak it all in.

My ride back to Havana was just as great as the one on the way there. The windows were down, I could smell the sea, and I could see Havana in the distance through the pink window of my car.

I checked out the rooftop pool at our hotel when I got back and went for a swim, mainly to wash off the sand. I enjoyed a drink, and then we headed out for another dinner in a palador (private restaurant).

Jesus my driver

My pink car!

Photo out the window

Beach view from my thatched hut ... 

nothing but locals on a Sunday afternoon

Enjoying the water

My new Cuban friends

Heading back to Havana

More Hemingway

In 1940, Hemingway and his third wife built a beautiful house on a piece of land outside of Havana. They called it Finca Vigia (Lookout Farm), with its big limestone villa and thirteen acres of banana trees, tropical shrubs, and casual gardens. The house is exactly as it was when they left in 1960.

His boat, Pilar, the one that inspired him to write “The Old Man and the Sea.” It is also on display there.

We also visited the dock where he kept the boat. Here is one of many statues dedicated to Hemingway.

Most of the rest of the statues are in the bars he frequented.

Cuba, like most foreign countries, has a big market. They sell the typical Caribbean handicrafts, souvenirs, t-shirts, etc. But Havana is different in that it is an island with a very active art scene. There is an art college, a wonderful fine arts museum (that we visited), and many local artists. Half of the huge indoor market is made up of paintings. Beautiful fine art canvases and some photographs. I love buying art when I travel and I ended up buying an incredible painting. (Full disclosure: the painting was not expensive, but the cost to have it framed or stretched onto a canvas will be five times what I paid for it!) 

However, it is a memory for me that will hang in my home, and for me, that memory is priceless. The vendors in the market will bargain a little, but nothing like in other countries. In Cuba, the price is the price, and they will maybe go down by 5 CUC’s, but they will let you walk away if you try to go too low.

It's a Wrap

Cuban Diet Coke

The famous Cuban cigars

Rooftop pool at my hotel

View of the harbor from my room

One of the many bands we saw everywhere we went.

The music scene was incredible.

One of the tanks Castro used in the Bay of Pigs

From the fine arts museum:  Jose Rodriguez Fuster, 

known as the Picasso of the Caribbean. 

He studied with Picasso, and the 

influence is seen in all of his work.

Photo in a restaurant of Fidel Castro 
and Robert Redford

The Cuban stamp in my passport

I was only in Cuba for three days and three nights. In some ways, it was like the blink of an eye ... and in others, if feels like I was there for a month. One thing is for sure. This short trip to Cuba really was a dream come true for me; it has been on my bucket list for 25 years. I am so grateful for the experience. Onellio told us when we arrived that he was going to tell us many things about Cuba. He would give us the inside story on the revolution, the government, what life has been like for the Cubans in the past and today. He told us that we would have to really stretch our thinking to be able to understand it. He warned us that we would likely come to understand it, but just because we understood it, didn’t mean we had to accept it. A lot of the answers he gave to our questions started out with the words: it’s complicated.

That is my take away. Cuba is complicated, beautifully and wonderfully complicated.

I am going back, there is no question.

If you are still reading, then I assume you have some interest or, like me, fascination with Cuba. My new dream is to organize a small group to go back for a short visit (maybe four nights) this fall.

Cuba is not for everyone. As mentioned above, it is complicated, and it will be a trip unlike any you have ever taken. However, if you are curious, if your interest is piqued, then please email me, and I’ll keep you posted on the opportunity to visit this very special place.

*** The tour that I went on is now available to book. Please email me if you are interested in visiting this special place. ***

dlane@maselunas.com