3/9 - day 0

3/9 - Cuba!

Note: I am having difficulty uploading pictures to the blog using the Havana hotel's wifi. I don't expect it to get any better when we leave Havana. I will keep blogging, but you may have to wait until I return to Syracuse to see the pictures that illustrate the narrative.

UPDATE: WiFI in EWK!!!

After nearly four weeks in Brooklyn enjoying Sol, it was time to get home to prepare for the bike trip to Cuba. While I did a little packing before going to Brooklyn, the reality of the trip did not really hit me until the day before departure.

Still, the week before leaving was spent running down vaccinations (Typhoid, HepA), getting lots of cash (credit cards won’t work almost everywhere in Cuba), picking up a couple of books I had ordered, and the usual, picking up mail that was supposed to be delivered, putting on another mail hold, cleaning out the fridge, notifying the credit union and Consumer Cellular that I was traveling, etc. 

The idea behind this trip originated because I was on sabbatical in the spring 2023 semester, probably my last one (at least I hope I’m not still working seven years from now!) so I thought it might be nice to go to a warm weather destination. VBT, our usual tour group went to South America, South Africa, and Oceania during our winter, but I don’t think any of us were excited about spending that much time on a plane. Backroads, the group we used in 2019 to go the Carolinas had a trip to Cuba, so the boys agreed to this suggestion. Backroads is a little pricier and the entire trip including a two-day pre-trip will make the final bill considerably more expensive than a typical VBT trip. But Cuba was interesting and more than just a bike trip. I had been to China a couple of times, so I was really looking forward to seeing how another socialist experiment was turning out. 

Coincidentally, our trip coincided with Le Moyne’s spring break and probably a lot of other schools too. I don’t think anyone mistook us for party animals.

The travel down took us through EWK and a flight on UAL directly to Havana. The EWK-HAV flight was a little under four hours and while Mike watched movies, I read through interesting sections of my books. I had almost finished Cuban Revelations by Marc Frank (2016), a book recommended by Backroad since meeting him was on our itinerary, so I gave that to Walter. I found interesting sections in Havana: a Cultural and Literary Companion (Lightfoot 2002) and Cuba: What Everyone Needs to Know (Sweig 2016). 

The Lightfoot chapter is organized geographically and while there’s a simplified map at the beginning of chapter 1, it was hard to determine which areas of Havana we would visit. The chapter on Old Havana (part 2) gave an interesting historical backdrop to the development of old Havana, but the next chapter, Casa de Natal de Jose Marti was a great discussion of Marti’s role in moving Cuba toward independence. It gave some clarity to the discussion in Frank’s book or the many actors who played a part in Cuban history.

The Sweig book is organized historically, so when Walter saw me reading the first chapter, he commented that I would never get to contemporary Cuba in time. He was right, so I finished the first chapter and read the last one. The last chapter covered the historic simultaneous announcements on12/17/14 by Obama and Raul Castro of normalizations. Still, it was 10 years old. It will be interesting to hear how things have changed in the 10 years that followed.

We booked our pre-trip with Cultural Cuba, a company based in south Florida. They arranged to pick us up at the airport and provided us with a private guide and driver for two days. It’s not cheap, especially compared to the VBT pre-trips, but it will be nice to have everything set up. And it looks like everything is more complicated in Cuba. 

I remember going to China in 1972, only a few months after Nixon’s historic trip to China and the only way you could visit China was with a visa and tour issued by the China Travel Service. Unlike our bike trips where many but not most of our activities were planned out for us, there was always the option to skip the day’s activities and go off on our own and do something else. On a China Travel Service tour, we were rarely out of sight of our handlers. I had to make a special request to meet with my maternal grandfather and I suspect my handler waited outside the room where we met and followed us around when we were on the move.  Secret agent stuff. I have the sense that being a tourist in Cuba will be similar.

Arriving in Havana is something of a shock to the system. I remember arriving in Costa Rica in January 2020 with the girls. I was near the back of the plane, so I stood by the open service door while everyone disembarked. I don’t think it is to metaphorical to say that the sunlight and warmth bathed me in the doorway. Since it was in the 20s in Syracuse when we left and will be in the mid-80s when we get off the plane, it will be the kind of experience that snowbirds crave. I have mixed feelings about this. There is an enormous carbon cost to this and I am not yet ready to give up on trying to enjoy winter. That said, I used my xc skis exactly 0 times this winter. Same with my snowshoes. And same with my fattie after a ride on an unusually warm 1/1. Wimp.

Here's a picture out the window of the Florida Strait. 

And here is Cuba from the air.