One guy has a sack of Tonka Toys, others are sending TVs and electric appliances.Ī young woman in line asks us if this our first trip. Everyone is bringing “goods” back to Cuba. Huge bundles of packages are shrink-wrapped in blue plastic, headed for screening. In line at the Havana Air check-in and we seem to be the only one traveling light. Michele located a travel agent, Maha Sarhan (Caravan Travel), who seemed prepared to make it happen. We had done enough research reading various travel books including Lonely Planet, Moon, Footprint and Frommers, and knew that we could do a two-person trip, though it would take some negotiation. We waited for the Obama administration to loosen up the travel restrictions before we got serious and Michele found a travel agent willing to tailor a cultural tour for two. Someone had said that you should bring useful small things to gift to Cubans: pencils, pens…condoms. Cuba did not seem like the place to put your foot in it while going footloose. At the end of the talk, we bought Rick Steve’s book on politically correct travel. He assured everyone that it was safe to wander around Cuba with cash, given that Castro was not too keen on crime in his country. And Rick pointed out the need to take plenty of cash, since credit cards are not going to do you much good. It was the first time I had understood about the two currencies, one for tourists – CUCs – and one for locals. Cuba was not on his guided tour list but his experience did help get us energized. Rick Steves gave a talk on his visit to Cuba with his family up in Edmonds. This had to be Marxist Karma or something. The guy mentioned he had been to Cuba, bicycling across the county several times and eventually writing the Lonely Planet guidebook to Cuba. Then on Lummi island while staying at the Willows Inn (when rates were low in the winter and before it was a “found” spot), we ended up talking with the only other guests on the lodge. He searched the whole damn car after that. Once when Michele and I crossed back into the States from Canada, the custom official asked if I had purchased anything and I was totally honest and said, “Four Irish linen handkerchiefs.” That was it. One woman guided regular tours and only had one tourist get fined …but it was hefty. We ran into those who had gone while circumventing the travel ban. I just knew that at US customs on my way back I would break under pressure and confess all. I wanted to go to Cuba but not by surreptitious routes entering via Canada or Mexico. A year later four Cuban women came to Seattle as a follow-up and visit our P-Patch program. When I arrived at my new job with the City of Seattle in 2001, our Department of Neighborhoods Director Jim Diers was heading to Havana on a cultural exchange, toting Styrofoam ice chests for Cuban gardeners to create worm bins. We would learn later this was labeled the “Special Period”.
#Carlos santiago moneyhouse san juan free#
I spent some time producing free lance editorial cartoons in Chicago and then in Seattle, and did a couple of toons on the collapse of the Soviet Union and the loss of support from Russia for Cuba. Michele and I wanted to step into that history and get a glimpse behind the curtain, whether iron or lace. Our embargo of Cuba was to impact the island population for several generations. The Domino Theory preoccupied policy makers and communism was seen as a real threat to democracy. Much as I was enthralled with the Lord Of The Flies story at the time, that was fiction and the Bay of Pigs was very real. Kennedy, my childhood hero, attempted a botched invasion to overthrow Castro as we played the bully of the Caribbean. I watched the Cuban Missile Crisis unfold on TV, with the real threat of global death creeping into my nightmares as we waited for doomsday. Cuba was the place that almost ignited humanity’s annihilation. San Juan gave me just a taste of Spanish Colonial and later American cultural influence on Caribbean island life. I was acclimatized to the environment, and acquainted with some local flora and fauna: the dry Caribbean forests, the brown and blue footed boobies, giant frigate birds and all sorts of glorious tropical fish. Desecheo Island was just east of Santa Domingo, and one more island over was Cuba. I had been in the vicinity a couple of times when studying monkeys in Puerto Rico. Cuba was a destination that was always out of reach.
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