While the rest of the world enjoys famous golf courses and lovely beaches, most Americans are stuck dreaming of the day they'll be able to visit Cuba legally. We met a couple a few weeks back that made their illegal trip to Havana via a stop in the Bahamas, but Windsor, Ontario hopes to become the gateway to the forbidden island.
Starting December 18, Sunwing Airlines, which is like the Allegiant Air of Canada, will offer flights to Varadero, Cuba from Windsor Airport, about a 20-minute drive from downtown Detroit. And the airport manager is rolling out the welcome mat for Cuba-bound Americans:
On average, about 50 percent or more of passengers flying to Cuba from Canada are from the US. Given our unique geographic position near Metro Detroit, we're expecting at least that.
Another option will soon be Sunwing service out of Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, just north of Michigan's UP. Of course, these new flights just add to Sunwing's existing Cuba route network, though they do make it even easier for Americans to skirt Treasury Department rules.
Presumptive GOP presidential nominee John McCain has been stumping around America, and lately he's been slamming Barack Obama for his position on Cuba. (You'll remember that the Illinois senator wants to ease travel restrictions to the island.)
Hoping to set the record straight, Obama delivered a speech today to the Cuban American National Foundation:
Every four years, [politicians] come down to Miami, they talk tough, they go back to Washington and nothing changes in Cuba. That's what John McCain did the other day.
Obama then laid out his plan for dealing with the island, which isn't exactly what those of us who'd like to visit legally were hoping to hear:
I will immediately allow unlimited family travel and remittances to the island ... [but] I will maintain the embargo.
Sounds like we'll be keeping our golf clubs in storage no matter who wins in November.
So Americans may be playing less golf, but that doesn't mean it's not a big, ahem, driver of tourism. And now that Fidel's on the way out--and Raul's in charge--at least a dozen golf-and-resort projects are underway around Cuba.
Seems the reason golf never caught on was Castro's taste in sports, though he did once play a game with Che Guevara, above:
Mr. Castro built a state-sponsored sports machine that produced world-famous boxers and baseball players, killer volleyball spikers and fleet-footed runners. But Mr. Castro was never keen on golfers, whose sport reeked of money and Yankee imperialism.
Today, there's only one nine-hole course in the capital, simply called the Havana Golf Club. Thanks to a pricey greens fee of 20 Cuban convertible pesos ($18) it draws more tourists than locals, and soccer great Diego Maradona has been spotted on the links. Also worth a trip is Varadero beach, where one 18-hole course is already open, and another resort is in the works.
Fidel Castro announced overnight that he'd be stepping down as president of Cuba. After taking power in 1959, he's been the only leader the island has known and a continuous scourge to American presidents from Kennedy to Bush 2. Fidel's 76-year-old brother Raul will almost certainly take over the presidency.
That said, don't start planning your Cuban beach getaway just yet. (If you're American, that is.) President Bush, on a trip to Rwanda, isn't even pretending to be excited by this move:
Eventually, this transition ought to lead to free and fair elections--and I mean free, and I mean fair--not these kind of staged elections that the Castro brothers try to foist off as true democracy.
We'll put away the sunscreen for now. Even American presidential contender Barack Obama, who's said he wants to change policy toward the island, won't go so far as to end the embargo. Fidel's resignation, then, has us wondering what comes not next week but in the next few years.
Will a cascade of power swaps destabilize Cuba, making it unappealing to even European tourists? Or will the nation finally welcome US tourists, who'll be gagging to make the short hop south from Miami to enjoy the once-forbidden island? And maybe more importantly than can we go, when will we be able to visit legally?
Customs and Border Protection officers in Florida spend so much time searching passengers coming back from Cuba they may be missing actual threats to the country, says the Government Accountability Office. A report from the agency today says one in five passengers arriving in the States from Cuba are given intensive inspections, despite the fact that most of them have visited the island legally. (On average, customs officers put just three percent of international arrivals through the wringer.)
All the attention on enforcing the embargo on Cuba, says the GAO, keeps agents from other important work:
[Customs and Border Protection] data and interviews with agency officials suggest that the secondary inspections of Cuba arrivals at the airport may strain CBP's ability to carry out its mission of keeping terrorists, criminals and other inadmissible aliens from entering the country.
The report notwithstanding, the US State Department says that enforcing the embargo remains a priority. President Bush actually tightened sanctions on Cuba in 2004, but presidential hopefuls Ron Paul and Chris Dodd have both said they'd work to end the embargo if elected. Until then, Americans are stuck sneaking to the island and hoping they won't get caught coming home.
While some Democratic presidential candidates have been discussing the US ban on travel to Cuba, a bunch of tourists are ignoring the talk and visiting the island. The trip may not be legal but that doesn't seem to bother the thousands of Americans--including Michael Moore--who risk big fines to check out Fidel's country.
In fact, one tourist says that's the point:
The fact that you're not supposed to be there, that was the top for me...You just don't know what Cuba will be like after Castro's gone.
The American Society of Travel Agents--a group that admittedly has an interest in more tourists--says millions of Americans would visit Cuba if restrictions were lifted. Would that ever happen? It might: Barack Obama says he wants to relax travel rules, and Chris Dodd says he'll end the US-Cuba embargo outright.
Rumors are swirling today that Fidel Castro is no longer on death's door and could even return to lead Cuba.
Is it a coincidence that Castro's alleged phoenix like radio appearance coincides with the 9th Habano Cigar Festival, taking place in the Havana Convention Centre from February 26 to March 2? Doubt it.
Raul Castro, the current number one in Cuba, is rumored to dislike cigars--the horror.
This year's festival will launch a new line of cigars for the island's signature Cohiba brand known as Maduro 5 or Mature 5, which are finished with a wrapper leaf that has been aged five years. Wrapper leaves represent the final stage of cigar-making and are essential to how well a cigar burns.
Participants include Havana cigar smokers from Russia, Belgium, Netherlands, Switzerland, Sweden, Japan, China and England who are scheduled to visit tobacco plantations and cigar factories in the island, but there are no known celebrity attendees to generate cigar buzz. Luckily, it looks like Fidel will handle the buzz generation all on his own, thank you very much.
You probably think Miami is all consumed with Super Bowl XLI hotel drama this week, el wrongo. In their minds, Miami officials are already over the Super Bowl and planning the next big Orange Bowl event--The Castro is Dead party.
City Commissioner Tomas Regalado, a Cuban American, came up with the idea of using the Orange Bowl, noting the stadium was the site of a speech by President Kennedy in 1961 promising a free Cuba, and since reports of Castro's waning health broke late last summer, Miami is hard at work putting the final touches on the big soiree.
Don't call it a Death party, call it a "giant venue ready for people, if they wish, to speak to the media, to show their emotions".
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