- CHAPTER 3 -
Getting into Cuba
February 24, 1999 -- Wednesday
It took all day to get to Cuba from Maine. A fast sports fishing boat can make the 90-mile voyage from Key West to Havana in 10 hours. The famous long-distance swimmer, Diana Nyad, swam the distance in four days, nonstop.
The airport terminal in Cancun is a cavernous place, modern, noisy, and busy with pale tourists arriving and sunburned ones leaving. I’d flown in from Boston to meet Anna, who was arriving from New York. We cleared Mexican passport control and made our way to the Air Cuba desk to pay for our connecting flight to Cuba—the embargo did not permit payment for this leg of the flight while in the US. Charter flights from the States to Cuba are available for permitted groups. If you, like us, are interested in sneaking into Cuba, you will need to take a somewhat circuitous route. You can fly via Canada, Nassau, Cancun, or Jamaica.
Our Cuba flight was not until 9 that evening, so we sat, read, snacked, walked, talked, and waited. I briefed Anna on what we needed to accomplish while in Cuba.
• Fiond reasonable hotels and restaurants.
• Meet Victor, a possible fixer.
• Find a lab that can process color and B&W film.
• Visit the local photo centers.
• Talk to a tour operator.
• Visit Hemingway's old home here in Havana.
• Meet and talk to local photographers.
• Get the lay of the land.
• Develop a list of possible stories for students to follow.
• Talk with people in the art community.
At 9 PM, we boarded a Cuban Airlines flight to José Martí Airport, outside Havana.
It's an hour's flight from Cancun to Havana. We arrived at night, on February 24, 1999. Another dozen flights were also arriving, which meant we stood in line for an hour to clear passport control. Dressed in drab green fatigues, the agent asked a few questions, scrutinized our passports, and inquired about our purpose for being there. We said we were tourists. He sampled our entrance cards, slipped them into our passports, passed them back, and waved us on. The Cubans don’t stamp passports, knowing it might (would) cause problems when re-entering the States. You simply returned the entry card when you leave Cuba.
Anna and I retrieved my luggage, passed through customs, and found ourselves outside in the lobby of a modern airport terminal. It was new, spacious, and clean. It put JFK to shame. Posters advertising plush tourist hotels, beaches, and lines of costumed dancing girls made us feel as though we could have been in Miami.
It was a dark, humid night as porters rushed us and our bags outside to the taxi line. A modern taxi cab arrived and whisked us away. I was expecting a broken-down 1950s Capri with Reggie on a cassette player; instead, we were escorted to a Mercedes driven by a hip American-loving driver who had a degree in architecture and spoke English with an American accent. James Taylor on the cassette player.
While Anna and the cabbie jabbered away in Spanish, I watched the suburbs flash by through the car windows. The roads are well paved, with no potholes, and they are well lit, which is always a good sign. Ancient colonial buildings began to appear as we entered the city. Some buildings were in the process of being rebuilt, while others lay forgotten, empty, and as piles of rubble on the sidewalk in front. It was now 11 p.m., and there were few people or cars.
We are dropped off at the Parque Central Hotel, an office building in the center of Havana—a former office building that is now in the process of being turned into a tropical hacienda theme park. The lobby was all stonework, with a sweeping staircase to a mezzanine. My room was large and well appointed, with a king-size bed, a TV, and an oversized tile and stone bathroom with a bathtub and a shower. I was surprised to see Cuba had such capitalistic accommodations until I realized it was, of course, for wealthy Europeans whose countries had no Cuban travel ban.
Anna and I shared a late dinner at the hotel restaurant and chatted about what was going on at The Workshops. By the time we finished dinner, I was ready to collapse. It had taken us 17 hours to get here, thanks to the US travel restrictions—Maine to Boston, to Houston, to Cancun, to Havana.