Americans flock to ‘forbidden’ isle
Many ignore travel restrictions to sample island paradise
By Mary Murray
NBC NEWS
HAVANA, Sept. 7 — Due to a 40-year-old embargo,
it’s still illegal to travel to Cuba unless you have
a license. But with gateways available through
other countries, it’s not hard to find plenty of
Americans haunting the historic resorts.
UP UNTIL VERY RECENTLY, the United States’ ban on
travel to Cuba — in force since Washington first severed
diplomatic ties with Fidel Castro’s government almost four
decades ago — had been enough to stop American tourists
from visiting Cuba.
Nowadays though, with the Cold War mentality eroding
away, some U.S. tourists are venturing beyond the limits of
the law to explore this holiday spot known as the “other
Caribbean.”
Thomas Paul Treat is one of a new breed of American
travelers to Cuba. He’s not anything like what had once been
the typical visitor to the socialist mecca — members of
solidarity delegations traveling to express support for the
Cuban revolution. Treat, a Vietnam veteran and fifth-grade
teacher from Colorado, considers himself a world traveler
who’s twice circled the globe.
While touring Latin America this summer, Treat and eight
other grammar-school teachers snuck over to Cuba from
Mexico basically to see what all the noise is about.
“I’ve heard from many Americans who say Cuba is a
paradise, and I wanted to see a part of the Caribbean I’ve
never seen before,” explains Treat as he leans back in a bar
chair in Havana’s Hotel Nacional, inhaling deeply from a
Cohiba cigar and consuming a cold Cuban beer.
Treat gestures at a wall crammed with photos of
Hollywood’s rich and famous pre-Castro guests at this
five-star hotel: Buster Keaton, Gary Cooper, Errol Flynn,
Fred Astaire, Rita Hayworth, Betty Grable, Tyrone Power,
Marlon Brando, Spencer Tracy, John Wayne, Nat King Cole
and Johnny Weismuller. Treat notes the obvious: “Cuba has
always held a special attraction for Americans ... This country
is part of our own history.”
Americans are still largely responsible for the Hotel
Nacional’s 92 percent occupancy rate. “We’ve been flooded
with Americans since 1995, when people began hearing
about the changes here,” explains Liset Conde, public
relations officer.
Conde says Americans arrive from third countries since
the scheduled flights from the United States are strictly
reserved for Americans licensed to travel to Cuba — Cuban
Americans, journalists and academics. The law even prohibits
U.S. offices of airlines that fly to Cuba from third countries,
like Mexicana de Aviacion or Air Jamaica, from booking
flights to Cuba.
THE SURREPTITIOUS ROUTE
Vacationing Americans skirt the law by going through an
airline office or travel agency outside the United States. The
most popular gateway cities are Montreal, Toronto, Nassau,
Cancun, Mexico City, Merida and Kingston.
It’s not clear just how many Americans are sunning
themselves on Cuba’s sparkling white sand, bathing in
her warm turquoise waters, or paying $25 per person to
watch the Tropicana dancers grind their hips at the notorious
nightclub under the stars. Michael Kozak, Washington’s
top diplomat in Havana, believes it’s probably less than
50,000, while Havana sources claim as many as 125,000
Americans will spend tourist dollars in Cuba this year.
Either way, when compared to the more than 7 million
Americans who head to the Bahamas every year, Cuba
remains an unspoiled and forbidden fruit.
And that’s part of the grand lure.
Curiosity about Cuba present and past is what drives
many of these Americans to defy the long-standing embargo
and engage in illegal travel to the island.
“We have Americans who come and ask for Room 225,
where Ava Gardner always stayed, or 232, which belonged
to Johnny Weismuller,” Conde says. Hotel management,
distinctly trying to capitalize on the Nacional’s past fame,
made plans to renovate Room 212 — the place where Frank
Sinatra hung his hat — just days after the singer died.
Treat found his long weekend in Havana “a journey into
a time warp ... Latin and intense.” The city is a kaleidoscope
of colonial, Eastern Bloc and late-’50s architecture. For $12
you can hop in an American classic like the 1956 Chevys and
1928 Fords parked outside all of the city’s major hotels to
tour convents, castles, cathedrals and forts dating back to the
15th century.
A WARM WELCOME
American visitors generally voice surprise at the
graciousness they’re shown by the Cuban people. “I
expected hostility, ill-will ... After all, our governments have
been at each other’s throats for a long time ... Instead, I got
warmth,” observed Mark Watson, an Alabama lawyer who
sailed to Cuba for a boat race.
Even Cuban immigration, notorious for its lengthy
Soviet-style red tape, is doing its part to embrace their
northern neighbors. American tourists can buy their Cuban
visas just minutes before boarding a Havana-bound flight.
The visa is never stamped into the passport but issued as a
loose document. Monica Ramos, an Argentine travel agent
who specializes in sending American tourists to Cuba, admits
this is a stroke to get around U.S. law: “It’s done for
convenience’s sake ... nothing appears in the passport, so no
one’s the wiser.”
The U.S. government accuses Cuban officials of “trying
to hide the evidence” of American tourists spending dollars in
Cuba without a U.S. Treasury license, thereby in violation of
the “Trading with the Enemy” Act. Treasury is empowered to
impose fines of up to $50,000 on lawbreakers, although the
enforcement of this law has been lax lately.
ENFORCING THE LAW
The American Mission in Havana, however, says that
things are about to change. Officials from Treasury, State and
Justice just met in Miami to discuss ways to improve
enforcement of embargo regulations.
“Mostly people are being told Cuba is a neat,
adventurous vacation,” Kozak warns. “People shouldn’t
believe that propaganda. It’s not risk-free. Treasury has
collected up to $1.7 million in fines over the last three years.
... You can get hit pretty hard with penalties.”
But people like George Wycoff, an 80-year-old retired
minister, claims he had no choice except to take the risk and
defy the law. “If I wait until the White House lifts the ban, I’ll
be dead!”
BRINGING THEM BACK
Notwithstanding today’s controversy, Cuba didn’t
always have the welcome mat out for American tourists.
During the years following Fidel Castro’s ascent to
power in 1959, the government halted the lucrative
international tourism trade to focus energy on building
factories, collectivizing agriculture and designing a generous
social-welfare program.
It wasn’t until the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union —
until then, Cuba’s main benefactor — that the government
turned to tourism as a way of becoming economically
independent, earning fast, hard currency for its badly battered
economy.
Since then, even without colossal numbers of American
tourists who make up the traditional mainstay of Caribbean
resorts, Cuban tourism has grown at a dizzying speed.
In 1990, just 330,000 tourists visited Cuba. By 1995,
numbers swelled to 740,000. This year, its sun, sand and surf
is expected to attract about 1.2 million visitors, and officials
forecast 2 million by the year 2000.
Economically speaking, tourism is now king — the
island’s top dollar maker as income from this growing
industry soared since the start of the decade. In 1994,
tourism bought $850 million to the national treasury, while this
year revenues will exceed $2 billion.
In the beginning of the decade, the Ministry of Tourism
tried containing visitors to a few choice places like the
exclusive Varadero Beach Resort or chic and pricey Cayo
Largo, so as not to mix with the often-impoverished local
population. But tourists wanted to taste and feel the “real”
Cuba, so today all of the island’s 14 provinces are open to
international tourism.
Cuba is a bright, bewildering land full of color, rhythms,
motion and heat, texture and form. Americans frequently
comment on how the Cuban people share our satiric sense of
humor, our generous and sociable natures.
“I feel alive here,” comments Becky, an American navy
nurse in Havana for a few days of sightseeing. “I love the
music and dance. The mix of African and Spanish roots ...
The old churches and the forts. The fact there’s no drugs.
Cuba’s unspoiled. The only drawback is the prostitution.”
THE DARK UNDERBELLY
Cheap thrills is exactly what’s bringing some Americans
to the island.
Kozak, expressing the view of the U.S. State
Department, charges that “Americans who come here are not
above what the other tourists here do ... A lot of this tourism
involves sex tourism — exploiting the young, who are just so
desperate for money they’ll do anything.”
In Havana alone, unofficial estimates put 20,000
prostitutes out working the streets. And even more
unfortunate is how tourism prostitution has drawn under-age
Cubans into its net.
The Cuban government may frown on sex tourism, but it
hasn’t been able to do much to keep it from blossoming —
especially as the boom in tourism coincides with the harshest
economic recession to grip Cuba in half a century.
Industry managers take offense at this portrayal. Miguel
Angel Solano, who helps run the large outfit Cubanacan,
asserts that his company strives to attract what he calls
“wholesome” tourism.
“We’re promoting tourism that exploits Cuba’s 4,000
miles of expansive coastline, 50 cays and 280 sparkling
beaches,” Solano says. “We promote wholesome diversions
like horseback riding, bird-watching and nature hiking in
Matanzas and Pinar del Rio, exploring picturesque colonial
villages in Trinidad; sunbathing, snorkeling, and yachting off
the Cuban coast.”
AN OCEAN-GOING BOUNTY
That’s what lured David, a medivac pilot, to sail to
Havana’s Hemingway Marina seven times over the past
three years. The U.S. travel ban hardly matters to David:
“Some people are scared, but I’m not. I don’t pay attention
to the ban,” he says.
He admits that’s part of the mystique for him — “a
cruising adventure to a land officially off-bounds” — along
with some of the “greatest deep-sea fishing for marlin and
shark there is.”
At any one time, you can spot American flags flying from
about 80 yachts docked in the broad canals of Hemingway
marina. “Cuba’s a stepping-stone to cruising between the
Caribbean and Central America,” says Jose Miguel Diaz
Scrich, Commodore of Havana’s International Hemingway
Yachting Club.
The Commodore says more American boaters come to
Cuba for leisurely sails and local races than any other
nationality. “They see Cuba as the last major Caribbean
destination unexplored by the current cruising community,”
asserts Diaz.
The club also provides logistical help for members and
non-members alike: docking, auto and hotel reservations;
customs notification; and even guides to help you navigate
around the island. The Club can be reached by e-mail.
Actually, boating is becoming one of the easiest ways to
reach Cuba. The country has a chain of eight international
marinas strategically located around the island’s perimeter
with customs and immigration officers right on the premises:
Marina Hemingway near Havana; Darsena and Gaviota at
Varadero; Jucaro at Trinidad; Cienfuegos; Santiago; Maria la
Gorda and Cayo Largo.