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Appreciating Cuba's Clichés: Streets Full of Classic American Cars

With President Obama working to lessen Cuba Travel restrictions, the island risks getting caught up in a hurricane of clichés. Thinking travelers aren’t generally fooled by the shiny veneer of places plugged in a Lonely Planet, but don’t discard Cuba’s clichés. They’re what make this intriguing country so exotic, so vibrant and so darned colorful. A Jaunted special secret correspondent discovers the best of each, all this week.

Cuba is an automobile enthusiast’s wet dream.

If you are one—a car enthusiast, that is, not a wet dream—then close your eyes and fantasize for a second. Imagine a catwalk of Chevys, Buicks, Chryslers and Plymouths, swinging their giant pink, mint-green or firey-red hips down a street lined with extravagant, crumbling mansions. In any central Havana square you’ll see them posing in the sunlight, radiator grilles pouting sexily for tourists’ cameras. (Off-stage they’re just as narcissistic.) All announce their arrival and departure on the scene with a thunderous drum roll from a thirsty engine and a dramatic puff of thick black smoke. The sight will blow you away, if the smoke doesn’t.

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Cuba, Now: Beyond the Hustlers to the Best Beach on Cuba’s South Coast

With President Obama working to lessen Cuba Travel restrictions, the focus on future trips to the country is growing wildly. A Jaunted special secret correspondent just returned from a period in Cuba, and she'll be sharing her impressions of the country, the people and their hopes all this week.

I was expecting an “ethereal colonial jewel,” a “sparkling colonial diamond,” a “perfectly preserved Spanish colonial settlement where the clocks stopped ticking in 1850.” At least that’s what I read in the Bible (aka Lonely Planet Cuba), as I rumbled slowly down a desolate six-lane motorway half-built with Soviet funds before the Berlin Wall collapsed. The surprisingly smooth tarmac stops abruptly when the bus heads south—via a pit stop for a Cuban version of a croque monsieur—towards the sparkling Caribbean sea and Cuba’s second-most popular tourist city of Trinidad.

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Cuba, Now: The Word You Need to Know for Edible Food is 'Paladares'

With President Obama working to lessen Cuba Travel restrictions, the focus on future trips to the country is growing wildly. A Jaunted special secret correspondent just returned from a period in Cuba, and she'll be sharing her impressions of the country, the people and their hopes all this week.

In my last post on Cuban food I quite rightly dissed cocina Cubana and its partner in crime comida criolla for its unimaginative, repetitive, lukewarm drudgery. But I wasn’t being entirely fair to the Cuban restaurant scene: I didn’t mention paladares. For there are glimmers of hope appearing at the Cuban table, at least if you’re a tourist with a wad of Convertible pesos and the latest Lonely Planet guidebook.

Paladares—privately-owned restaurants, run mostly in people’s living rooms or in crumbling and unlikely-looking mansions like the one pictured above—have brought spice to the Cuban menu. Legal since 1993 but operating clandestinely long before that, they’re obliged to serve only Cuban home cooking (rice, beans, pork) and no beef, so as not to compete with the uncompetitive state-run restaurants.

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Cuba, Now: Sacred Cows, Spit-roasted Pig and Peso Pizza

With President Obama working to lessen Cuba Travel restrictions, the focus on future trips to the country is growing wildly. A Jaunted special secret correspondent just returned from a period in Cuba, and she'll be sharing her impressions of the country, the people and their hopes all this week.

Old hacks love to joke that the sole Cuban contribution to world cuisine is rice “a la Cubana”—with an egg. "Take tins of tuna," scream the guidebooks. Carry peanut butter! Cereal bars! Vitamins! Laxatives! I thought they were exaggerating.

After a couple of weeks on the Cuban tourist trail, it’s with a heavy heart (and stomach) that I confirm everything you’ve heard about Cuban food is true. That is: the endless plates of Moros y Cristianos—"Arabs and Christians" or "rice and beans" to you and me—the soggy, gray tinned vegetables, the thinly sliced cabbage "salads," the powdered milk, the inevitability of the waiter’s apologetic smile when you dare ask for anything that isn’t fried pork, fried chicken, or, if you’re lucky, fried white fish.

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Cuba, Now: The Two-Tier Society of Standing in Line

With President Obama working to lessen Cuba Travel restrictions, the focus on future trips to the country is growing wildly. A Jaunted special secret correspondent just returned from a period in Cuba, and she'll be sharing her impressions of the country, the people and their hopes all this week.

As a patriotic English girl I thought—hah!—I knew how to queue. I’d never been to Cuba before.

Masters of the art of standing in line, Cuban people have cultivated both infinite patience and a set of queuing rules more complex than the small print on a bureaucrat’s brain. It’s partly practice. Socialism is supposed to create equality, but Cuba has two currencies and two sets of people: those who earn in Cuban pesos, or moneda nacional, and those with access to Convertible pesos, which in 2004 replaced the US dollar. Meager salaries—around $15-20 a month for most jobs, including doctors—are supplemented by ration books. And rationing means queuing.

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Cuba, Now: Viva la Commercial Revolución

With President Obama working to lessen Cuba Travel restrictions, the focus on future trips to the country is growing wildly. A Jaunted special secret correspondent just returned from a period in Cuba, and she'll be sharing her impressions of the country, the people and their hopes all this week.

What struck me most powerfully on arriving in Havana was the complete absence of advertising.

Traveling to Cuba from the world’s commercial super-center—the USA—is like diving from a hot, sweaty and crowded monkey cage into a refreshingly vast and empty pool. There is nothing in most Cuban shops beyond a packet of dried black beans and some powdered custard—the same brand, always the same brand. You can’t buy or sell a car made after Castro’s 1959 communist revolution. Toasters and other domestic essentials were until recently banned. Decadent, capitalist toasters!

So the question is: are Cubans ready for the commercial revolution that will sweep through the island like a rainy-season hurricane the moment the US embargo falls?

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More Airports to Get Havana Flights as Obama Lessens Cuba Travel Restrictions

You know, ever since President Barack Obama entered office, we've been doing stories on the ever-so-gradual opening of Cuba, including everything from Orbitz's "Open Cuba" campaign to WestJet's direct flights from Canada. And now we are yet another step closer to drinking many a Cuba Libre as Obama has made several changes, all which go into effect in about two weeks and do not require congressional approval.

Here's what's going down:

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Obama May Take Cuba Travel into His Own Hands

While the first family has enjoyed several unique vacation locations, we think that they really want to go to Cuba this winter. President Obama seems eager to open up the travel channels between the United States and the island nation, and it might just happen before the summer is over.

Rumors suggest that Obama could ease travel restrictions to Cuba through a change in US policy without necessarily getting approval from Congress. However, the new rules won’t really apply to everyone, so once again, we’ll have to hold off on getting our tickets and transportation booked. The changes would allow more Americans to head to Castro-country for cultural and educational trips. That sounds kind of vague, so maybe checking out an art museum or two would suffice for cultural experience.

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Another Vote, Another Step Closer to Cuba Travel

This just might be the year where we can finally put that flight to Cuba on our holiday wish list. Lawmakers have talked about lifting travel restrictions before, but it seems that the Cuba travel movement picks up a little bit more support with every passing day.

The latest news comes out of the House Agriculture Committee, as they voted to eliminate the ban on United States citizens traveling to Cuba as well as the sale of American goods there. Don’t start looking for vintage-1950s rental car deals just yet, as there is still a lot of voting and arguing left before you’ll be filling your suitcase full of cigars in the the heart of Havana.

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Mayor of Tampa Not Concerned with Oil Spill, Wants Flights to Cuba

One Florida Mayor has more on her mind than where all that oil in the Gulf is eventually headed, but it does seem that tourism is something that she’s considering. Mayor Pam Iorio of Tampa sent a letter to President Obama last week asking for a little bit of help, because she wants her city to start air service to Cuba.

Specifically, she wants Tampa to get the government seal of approval to start authorized flights between Castro-country and Tampa. Right now only Miami, New York, and Los Angeles are authorized to fly nonstop routes to Havana, but remember that doesn’t mean that any American can just hop on board to check out Cuba. There’s still all kinds of rules and regulations that leave most of us out of the fun, or at least force Americans to head to Canada before they can enjoy freshly rolled cigars and too many Cuba Libres.

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Cuba is Already Planning the Parties for the End of the US Travel Ban

As Congress mulls over lifting the 47-year-old travel ban against Cuba, the Caribbean country is already planning for the influx of U.S. tourists and for the possibility of being the hot new spring break destination for 2011.

Cuba isn't waiting for the ban to be officially lifted before readying itself for the impending tourism boom. At least nine hotels are slated to be built this year, and the country's looking to add about 200,000 rooms. Cuba's also searching for investors to create 10 golf courses and luxury hotels aimed at American tourists. But what about a Copa Cabana club?

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Does The 'Freedom To Travel To Cuba Act' Have a Chance?

We alluded to the Cuba travel embargo this morning in our Biggest Hotspot Of The Decade post, and rumors of its imminent demise have certainly been picking up. Reuters reported last week that travel industry insiders—the people who have a financial incentive to be on the cutting edge—are gearing up for Congress to lift travel restrictions.

Not coincidentally there's a bill winding its way through Congress that aims to do exactly that. The Freedom to Travel to Cuba Act seems to be within striking distance of passing the House and it's lined up some powerful figures in the Senate. Obviously travel industry blogs are keeping an extremely close eye on the legislation, and Travel Agent Central has a nice survey of the political landscape:

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