My Journey to Cuba (09/14/2024-09/22/2024)

Cuba is a country I’ve always dreamt of visiting not for its natural beauty, but for its history and culture.

Preparations

As a US citizen, it was tricky to consider a trip to Cuba (communist country). Given the safety concerns, traveling with agencies is a good and comfortable option. I chose to use Intrepid, a partner travel agency with Google.

Cuba requires a visa for any US citizen to visit the country. The Cuban embassy provides electronic visa application, but you need to apply 14 days before the trip. I was late for the application, and had to pay a higher price for third party service. Some airports provide visa service (such as Atlanta, Miami), but San Francisco does not provide such service. Also, to enter Cuba, you need to pre-fill custom declaration form.

Cuba is a country that lacks food which means you cannot buy snacks (cookies, chocolates, soda, etc) in the supermarket. So my suggestion is to bring your own snacks from US.

Entry to Cuba

After flying 6 hours (transfer in Huston), I arrived Havana safely. This is the Cuban customs office, a very simple and non-fancy facility.

I hoped I would get stamps on my passport for my entrance to Cuba, but unfortunately received none.

This is the airline check-in counter, again, no automatic check-in machine.

Package in the airport belt with the plastic wrappers.

Cuban weather

I went to Cuba in September. The weather was super hot and humid, and walking in the street was like walking in the steam room.

And in the country side, there has 8-10 hours daily black house during which we couldn’t access the AC and fan, making it almost impossible to sleep well. The locals referred to this as “black house”. The reason for the black house seemed to me like the Cuban government could not pay crude oil or gas to Russia or China, so the country lacks resources.

Cuban demography and history

Cuba has a long history and is an island located in Caribbean only 90 miles away from USA. It has very diverse cultures, religions, and races. Native Americans originally lived in Cuba, but with the global exploration of Columbus, Spain colonized Cuba for 400 years. The immigrants from Europe that came to Cuba which also brought diseases that killed most native Americans.

Sugar was white gold in 1800s, which made it a very profitable business. Spain used Cuba as a sugar plantation. Due to most of native Americans dying from the diseases, Cuba lacked laborers for the Spanish plantations. Therefore, Spain imported slaves from Africa for sugar plantations in Cuba. After Haiti liberated from France, some French also migrated to Cuba to continue with the sugar business. Thus, Cuba is a mix of different races – Spanish, Native American, African, French, etc. If you observe Cuba even for current days, the hierarchy of races are still very obvious – white people still hold the high power.

Slave chain demonstrated in the museum

After 400 years of colonies from Spain, US helped Cuba to get freedom, but controlled Cuba through proxy appointed president.

After 3 years of proxy presidency, the Great Depression hit globally. Due to economic pressure, Cuba people were against US control. The US agreed to apply fair elections in Cuba in exchange for US control Guantánamo Bay for $4000/year,. Later on, after 9/11, the US used Guantánamo Bay as terrorist prison, free of US and Cuba laws -a lot of prisoners reported abuse there.

With the corruption of Cuba’s elected government and the Great Depression, the Cuban people suffered from many hardships. With all the complaints from the Cuban people, Fidel Castro led the revolution in Cuba. A trio of leaders was formed – Fidel Castro, Rahul Castro and Che. They met in Mexico, got military training there, and transported 82 people by boat into the Cuban mountains to stage a revolution .At the beginning of the coup, there was no USSR or China support, and, later on in UN conference, while Castro clearly declared that Cuba was not a communist country, Castro’s policies and economic views were very communist.

Our tour guide was a college English professor, but due to economic concerns (she only received $20-30 per month salary), she quit the job and worked as a tour guide instead.

Che’s museum and monument

After Fidel Castro took the power, the CIA planned several assassination attempts toward Castro. According to many sources, the CIA was crawling with Cuban spies, so Castro had a detailed understanding of the USA’s plan before the operative even reached Cuba. Therefore, all assassination attempts failed.

After Fidel Castro died two years ago, his nephew inherited the crown. He opened the door a bit for Cuba. It turned out 1 million young Cubas fled from the country, and legally / illegally immigrated to US. Although Cuba is only 90 miles away from US, most of people do not take a boat, they go to Mexico and walk to the US. Due to lack young generations, Cuba college admission rate is almost 100% and all the education is free, even for extracurriculars (as long as the student shows talent and got admitted into the class).

After Fidel Castro took the power of Cuba, its economy heavily relied on the USSR. When the USSR collapsed in 1992, Cuba’s economy took a big hit, and a lot of Cuban woman (no matter students, doctors, etc) were forced into prostitution. One of the statues show the a naked woman riding on a cock. And one of the cock’s leg lifted, which means its morals are lifted.

Cuban economy

Cuba’s economy is still fully government controlled. That means the jobs are all government joba, no matter if you’re doctor, teacher, farmer, etc. All or most of the services and produces income have to go to government, then the government will distribute basic needs.

Cuba people used food stamps to get the food from government. The picture below, left side of the book is the family members name, the right side is the record for daily food distribution. The guide told us that every month, every citizen can get 5 eggs, and the only meat is chicken. Another picture is a government shop distributing bread to Cuban citizens.

Cuba suffers from a US embargo which means Cuba cannot get any product that contains US merchandised part, such as cell phone, airplane, etc. In order to get phones, Cuba’s people had to go to black market to guy at a high price. The same is true for medicine, the black market is the main source even for the medicine.

In order for Cuban government to get US dollar, Cubans have to use US dollars to buy the merchandise even in the government shop. The government shop sells oil, clothes, soap, dish soap, etc. And most of the products are made in Italy. If Cubans do not have channel (such relatives) to get US dollar, they have to exchange in the black market with way more higher exchange rate using Cuban Peso.

Cuban pharmacy is out of medicine due to US embargo. The guide suggested us to leave antibiotic and pain relief medicine to local Cuban people.

Only government can run the tour bus with the brand Transtur

In Cuba, when tourist walking in the street, there are people begging,, especially elders and children who usually do not have shoes. Also there are dogs and cats asking food from the tourists given they are too hungry.

Obama government allows cruise to park at Cuba port. But it was closed by Donald Trump and has not been resumed by Joe Biden.

Cuba’s main economy is rum, tobacco, vaccine production.

Mojito without alcohol

Traditional Cuba drink (rum, honey, ?)

Cuban food

In Cuba restaurant, tourists can order food containing pork, chicken, or lobster. I ordered three lobster dishes which has a very reasonable price – $10.

On Cuba beach, I saw a one footed man catching a lobster for the local restaurant, and, suddenly, I felt so guilty having had the lobster lunch, but if I did not consume the lobster, how could he make the money by catching it?

Cuban nature

Cuba is a country has both mountains and beaches.

Cuban beach’s water is clear and warm. It is the perfect place for swimming and snorkeling. One striking thing for Cuba’s beaches are that there is very few people on the beach. I went there on Friday and only saw one group of Cuban citizens there, the rest are all tourists.