It's been about 2 and a half weeks in Cuba so far and it certainly is an intersting place. This post will be mostly a reccount of the activites so far with less political observation/commentary, but I'll include that on a later post.
But first, isn't it illegal for Americans to travel to Cuba? Yes and no. Obama actually legalized travel for American citizens who are at least third generation Cuban, and as my maternal grandmother is Cuban this qualified our entire family. For those less fortunate who do not have sangre cubana, it is still technically legal to travel to Cuba... you just are not allowed to spend any money. This essentially makes it illegal to come here, but tens of thousands of Americans make the trip via Mexico or Canada each year and nothing happens.
My stay in Cuba began with an 8 day tour of Western Cuba. Due to flight timing I landed the evening before the rest of my family, but they arrived the next morning and we spent the day in Havana before starting the offical tour. I'm still not quite sure how this happened but somehow I ended up in first class from Mexico City to Havana, a very welcome gift after a 3:30am wakeup and a 4 hour connection delay.
Completely by chance our entire tour was American: my family, a family from Orange County, another from New Mexico, and a teacher from Washington DC. Our guide, Dadi, was a Cuban native who spoke English with an Australian accent, and drove the crew around in our nicely air conditioned bus.
First stop was the Che museum, a 2 hour ride outside Havana and about 30 minutes from our first night in Santa Clara. Interestingly enough there are posters and slogans of Che everywhere but very few of Fidel. The relationship between Cuba, Che, and Fidel could be my graduate thesis topic so lets just note that observation and move forward.
In the evening we took an hour bus ride outside of the city to a small town famous for its Christmas Eve fireworks. Christmas has an interesting history in Cuba: after the revolution Fidel banned it and people had to work on the 25th (how was there never a grinch parody with Fidel??). When the pope visited in 1997 Christmas was reinstated and the people got their holiday back, but because there was nearly a 40 year gap it isn't that strongly celebrated. The party for Christmas Eve apparently never got canceled though and this was quite the fiesta. The fireworks were somewhere in between the size that you light off in your backyard and the ones at Disneyland, but with almost no wind and a launch pad in the center of the square we were literally doging the fallout. Would it have sucked to have been burned by firework debris? Absolutely. But I had a great time, and these are the kind of experiences that our litigeous society has for better or worse erradicated.
The next day we left for Trinidad, a colonial town that is celebrating its 500th anniversary next week (the Menlo Almanac hasn't returned my emails for a paid stipend to be their correspondent but I'm going back anyways). Most of the town is cobblestone and you can walk just about everywhere, but the town seemed big enough that you could spend a week and have enough to do. We ate Christmas dinner on the beach, and while its not quite the same as waking up with presents under the tree it was an adequate substitute.
One of the most interesting experiences of Trinidad was by far the least expected... a discoteca in a cave! $3 gets you into the place, one mojito, a bizarre 30 minute show where a group of shirtless dudes pick up a table with their teeth, and unlimited cave dancing.
Our last stop before returning to Havana was Vinales, a bucholic town noted for its tobacco farms. This required a 9-hour bus ride across half of the country which was fortunately broken up by stops in Cienfuegos and the Bay of Pigs.
Once in Vinales, the highlight was a 3 hour hike through one of the farms where we enjoyed freshly rolled cigars at the source. The hike was capped by the best piña colada I have ever tasted in some random gazebo 30 minutes into the hillside. We ate our farewell dinner with the group at a nearby organic farm where we feasted on at least 10 different meat and vegetable dishes cultivated a few meters from our picnic table.
Guided tours are admittedly not my favorite activity (pub crawls of course are an exception), but as tours go this one offered enough independence and variety that I had a good time. Other than the two nights in Havana and the night in Santa Clara we slept in the homes of local Cubans, all of which were very comfortable with a private bedroom/bathroom. Overall, a pretty solid introduction to Cuba.
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