Posts Tagged "havana"

For the 3rd time in 5 years, I went to Cuba. This time our itinerary included Havana for two days, then Trinidad and we drove to Santiago to meet with our Cuban Salsa group: the All Stars. I knew that Cubans love music, or most exactly music is life for the Cubans. This trip did reinforce the notion to a new level. We witnessed a music video being filmed on the Malecon, people dancing in the streets and we could hear music all the time on the streets, coming from cars, apartments, phones. Havana is changing fast, we were able to get cash from an ATM using an European credit card (an impossible thing before), a new 5 stars hotel has opened (after 5 years of construction), luxury brands like MontBlanc, Leica, Nikon are opening shops in Havana. The old Havana was...

It has been almost 4 years since I have last visited Cuba and Havana. My first time around, it was harder to get to Cuba, you had to fly a charter plane, you had to travel with an officially sanctioned tour operator. This time around, we flew with JetBlue, we were still part of a group but that was a small group focused on dancing salsa and rueda. I was expecting huge changes in 4 years and that was not the case, Havana is still Havana. Everything here works on a different time scale. The main difference seems to be that there are more newer cars than last time but there are still plenty of old ones too. It seems there is more signs for “casa particular” (room for rent to tourists) and there is definitely more “palavar” (private...

We had the opportunity to go to Havana, Cuba for a week. Being French-American, we are subject to the embargo imposed by the US on Cuba. Which means that we cannot engage in any commercial relationships with Cuban nationals. However some companies have been licensed by the U.S. Department of the Treasury to provide people-to-people Cuba travel for U.S. citizens. People-to-People travel is an initiative allowing U.S. citizens and permanent residents to travel to Cuba on a limited basis to participate in cultural experiences and have direct contact with the Cuban people to learn more about them and their culture, while they learn about the American way of life. It’s not tourism, it is more rewarding as it is a real cultural exchange. In our...