Why Cuba?

¡Hola amigos!

My partner Judy’s mother, Sandy, lives in a retirement community in Boca Raton, Florida.  A couple months ago, she told us she was planning a 90^th birthday celebration for herself and inviting close friends and family.  I’ve known Sandy for most of the 30 years that Judy and I have been together.  Despite many health issues, her mind is still very sharp and I enjoy talking with her.  I thought it would be nice to accompany Judy to Florida and attend the big birthday bash.  However, it’s a long trip from Denver to Fort Lauderdale, the closest airport – about four hours each way plus getting to the airport, security, and all the usual assorted aggravations of flying.  Spending eight hours on a plane to attend a birthday party was not my idea of fun.  So I came up with an idea – I would attend the party if I could use Fort Lauderdale as a jumping off point for a trip to Cuba after the party.  Judy thought it was a good idea but didn’t want to join me because of health issues and the potential challenges of maintaining her vegan diet in Cuba. 

Sandy getting very excited over her explosive 90th birthday cake!

 

In all the times I’ve been to Florida, I’ve never taken the short 1¼ hour flight down to Havana.  For years, it wasn’t all that simple because of the U.S. embargo and restrictions on travel to Cuba.  Some of that changed under the Obama administration and direct flights between the U.S. and Cuba started in 2016. Trump reimposed some restrictions as did covid. However, there are currently direct flights to Havana from Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Tampa, Houston, Newark, and New York (Kennedy). 

Cuba is so close to Florida that it’s hard to pass up the opportunity for a visit!

 

But why would I want to visit Cuba?  Well, I’ve been interested in Cuba ever since the Cuban Revolution overthrew the corrupt, US mafia- and CIA-supported government of strongman, Fulgencio Batista when I was a kid.  Not long after, there was the Cuban missile crisis when we thought World War III was imminent.  A few years later, the Viet Nam War caused me and millions of other young Americans to mistrust our government.  So if they were lying about Viet Nam, what about Cuba?  Obviously, Fidel Castro was no saint but was the Cuban situation as one-sided as our government wanted us to believe? 

Nowadays, I’ve been miffed that the US government continues to make it hard for Americans to visit Cuba.  It seems hypocritical that Americans can now easily travel to Communist-ruled Viet Nam, our sworn enemy 50 years ago, but onerous U.S. Treasury Department regulations about spending money there seem designed to discourage Americans from making the trip to Cuba for fear of getting into deep do-do with our government (see: https://home.treasury.gov/policy-issues/financial-sanctions/faqs/topic/1541) or perceived hassles of traveling there.   

I don’t like the government telling me I can’t go somewhere and enjoy defying them with middle finger raised high.  But I’m also drawn by the natural beauty, mild Caribbean weather, and rich history and culture such a short hop from American shores.  Besides, I’ve been studying Spanish for many years and always welcome opportunities to improve my skills by using the language in everyday situations.

When I was first thinking about the possibility of travelling to Cuba, I discussed the process with my friends, Maggie Lawless and Marc Sydnor, who had visited there about four years ago as independent travelers.  I wanted to go to Cuba on my own like Marc and Maggie had done and not on an organized tour.  So what about those U.S. Treasury regs?  How do I avoid getting busted by the Feds?  Easy, they said.  One of the twelve categories of travel to Cuba permitted by the Treasury Department under their “general license” includes “support for the Cuban people”.  As they explained, this category requires no permit or other paperwork – only back-up receipts and personal documentation of your trip in the unlikely event that the Treasury Department decides to audit you. 

So what is “support for the Cuban people”?  Obviously, it’s very open-ended but in practice it means spending your Yankee dollars with Cuban individuals and small businesses, and not in Cuban government tourist facilities including big hotels.  Therefore, you stay in “hostals” or “casas particulares” (bed and breakfasts) run and owned by individuals and families; eat in “paladares” (privately-owned restaurants); use private taxis, “colectivos” (group taxis and mini-buses), and guides; shop in privately-owned stores; and go on privately-run tours.  “But what if I make a mistake and take a government-owned taxi, etc.?” I wondered.  “And how is the U.S. Treasury Department going to figure that out?” they replied. 

The bottom line is the U.S. government regs are designed to make the U.S. traveler to Cuba put money into the pockets of the Cuban people and not into Cuban government coffers.  That makes a certain amount of sense but it gets more complicated because U.S. law forbids American banks from having any transactional relationships with Cuban banks.  This creates problems for the independent traveler from the US as our American credit and debit cards don’t work there.  That means one has to carry a big wad of cash and any services that take only credit cards are off limits.  More on this issue in future blog posts.    

And what about that big wad of cash?  Sure, I could spread it around my body (money belts, an ankle pouch, a neck pouch, and shoes as well as different parts of different bags) but always in the back of my mind is the sad story of a friend who got jumped by three guys who took all his money, credit cards, and IDs in Argentina after he had just visited an ATM machine.  That was the end of his trip to be sure.  Maggie and Marc assured me that Cuba is very safe.  You wouldn’t want to walk alone down a deserted Havana street at 1:00AM but Cuban streets are generally safer than their American counterparts.  

Marc and Maggie also suggested that I could cut down the size of that wad if I reserved my casas particulares through Air B&B and paid in advance by credit card before leaving for Cuba.  And that’s exactly what I did. Of course, it locked me in to an inflexible itinerary but it sure made it easy when I arrived in a city with a paid reservation in hand.  

Having returned a week ago from 20 days in Cuba, I would certainly like to return sometime.  Yes, I would do some things differently and visit different places.  I would also plan the trip further in advance in order to set up meetings with professional geoscience colleagues in Cuba and arrange to do some of things I missed out on because of bureaucratic and credit card issues.        

I returned from Cuba with more than 1200 photos and 63 pages of notes.  Over the coming weeks, I’ll share some of my experiences, photos, and opinions with readers of my blog.  Hope you find these posts interesting and entertaining! 

© Will Mahoney 2022

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