U.S. law can't hold back tide of eager tourists

                   By Ginger Thompson
                   Tribune Staff Writer

                   HAVANA -- American flags waved from most of the boats at the
                   Hemingway Marina the other day. Two 54-foot fishing boats, the kind that
                   would have made the marina's namesake swoon, cruised in from Austin,
                   Texas, on their way to Southern California. There were sailboats from New
                   Orleans, Miami and Wilmington, Del.

                   And there was the 41-foot yacht "Chip's Ahoy" from Danville, Ill. Owner and
                   captain Chip Lucas said he bought the boat three years ago, when he turned
                   50. Since then he has been living his dream. He cashed in his restaurant and
                   package store, put his house up for sale, moved his wife and teenagers onto
                   the Chip's Ahoy and cruised all the way from Lake Michigan.

                   "We can go just about anywhere our hearts desire," said Lucas, between
                   swigs from his bottle of Bud Light. "One of the places our hearts desired was
                   Cuba."

                   Despite strict travel restrictions and frigid relations between the Cuban and
                   U.S. governments, thousands of Americans are defying U.S. law and
                   spending their vacations in Cuba, this hemisphere's last Communist outpost.

                   Under the 1963 Trading with the Enemy Act, Americans are allowed to
                   travel to Cuba, but they are not permitted to spend money there as tourists.
                   Exceptions are made only for foreign journalists, diplomats, academics,
                   religious officials and people with relatives in Cuba.

                   But the law seems unable to hold back the wave of American tourists coming
                   into Cuba by sea and by air. Last year, some 20,000 American tourists
                   traveled to Cuba, most taking flights from Canada, the Bahamas or Mexico.
                   While still a small percentage of the total number of tourists to Cuba -- 1.7
                   million who came last year mostly from Spain, Italy and Canada -- the
                   Yankee invasion is growing fast.

                   Citing the historic visit to Cuba by Pope John Paul II in January, Cuban
                   officials expect the number of American tourists to double this year.

                   Most are coming to Cuba on flights from Cancun in Mexico, Toronto,
                   Jamaica and the Bahamas. Others cruise or sail from the Florida Keys.

                   President Fidel Castro, who is relying on tourism to keep his country's flailing
                   economy afloat, couldn't be happier.

                   "Let them come," Castro said, referring to Americans in a speech last
                   February. "We will treat them excellently."

                   Indeed, wherever they were found last week -- napping in the breeze at the
                   Marina Hemingway, prowling for "chicas" at the Copacabana nightclub or
                   buying Santeria paintings in Old Havana -- American tourists said they were
                   having a ball.

                   Altogether, they were an eclectic, eccentric bunch drawn by curiosity about
                   the forbidden island. Like all tourists, they like to play and said they enjoyed
                   the pristine beaches, the lemony taste of a genuine mojito rum-and-mint drink
                   and the live music that fills the streets. However, some also took hard looks
                   at the dismal lives endured by most Cuban people.

                   Zenobia Brown, a family practitioner from New York, spent a day talking to
                   doctors at an emergency room in the beach resort of Varadero. Another
                   couple, in their 60s, rode a rusted, creaking train for eight hours from Havana
                   to the eastern city of Santiago, and back.

                   "It was an exercise in Purgatory," Charles Kanter of Key Largo, Fla., said
                   with a laugh. "But we figured it would be a good way to really get to know
                   the place."

                   When asked what their three children and eight grandchildren thought about
                   such escapades, Kanter and his wife declared in unison, "They think we're
                   crazy!"

                   Some of the American tourists were afraid to give their names for fear of
                   prosecution when they returned to the United States. Others, defiantly
                   opposed to the U.S. travel restrictions, insisted on being identified.

                   But all spoke openly about their visit, and their stories provided a look at how
                   average Americans feel about this nation--a target of hostile U.S. policy for
                   almost four decades--and how those feelings are strengthened or changed by
                   their time there.

                   "(The U.S.) should definitely lift the embargo because it's ridiculous," said
                   Brown, 27. "It's sort of one of these things that because Cuba wouldn't
                   become a colony, they wouldn't become Puerto Rico or St. Thomas, we're
                   going to bleed them dry."

                   At the Hemingway Marina, site of the pre-revolutionary Havana Yacht Club
                   about a half-hour drive from the historic city center, Chip Lucas of Danville
                   opened another Bud Light. He looked like a man who hadn't been at work
                   for a while--his skin dark tan, and his gray-blond hair in need of a trim. He
                   strolled on deck wearing only a pair of Tommy Hilfiger swim trunks and a
                   medallion on a gold chain around his neck. His wife, 39-year-old Kathy
                   West, showed off pictures of family and friends.

                   They had heard sketchy reports back home about bombs going off in a
                   church. But, when they are on the boat, they said, the only news that matters
                   to them are weather reports.

                   Their 12 days at the Hemingway Marina had been peaceful bliss, they said,
                   except for a few loud parties on the Italian boat behind them. The marina is a
                   plain-looking resort, with a bare landscape and a few tourist stands at the
                   entrance. During the day Lucas and his wife relax or clean the boat while the
                   kids -- 15-year-old Jake and 18-year-old Jesse -- Rollerblade or ride their
                   bikes with other boaters' kids.

                   In the evenings, people gather around the pool, at the marina bar, or they
                   meet at one boat, bring a television set on deck and watch movies.

                   On a few days, Lucas said, he took his family into town to try to get a sense
                   of how Cuban people live. He was surprised to find that there really is no
                   shortage of food in Cuba. There are only shortages for most Cuban people.
                   Tourists or Cubans with dollars can buy any kind of fruit or vegetables they
                   desire.

                   Most Cubans, however, earn pesos, a currency that is all but worthless. And
                   they are forced to rely on food rationed to them by the government each
                   month. Those rations are often stale or rotten.

                   Still, Lucas reasoned, at least no one is left to starve. "The government gives
                   people food as long as they go pick it up," Lucas said. "They give them jobs,
                   they give them everything they need."

                   West added, "I know their food is bad, but I think people here are used to it.
                   If you have never tasted candy then you don't know what you are missing."

                   When asked why he decided to bring his family to Cuba, Lucas opened
                   another beer and began to philosophize. He called himself a "red-blooded
                   American." He served in the Navy, pays all his taxes and obeys the law,
                   including the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba. His family brought all their
                   own food and supplies with them, he said, so they didn't spend money in
                   Cuba.

                   "We are not here to go against our country," he said. "We love our country."

                   Looking over at Kathy, he said, "My wife has a saying: `If you've never
                   traveled, you've only read one page in the book.' Who are we to say that
                   what this country does is right or wrong? All I want to do is enjoy my family
                   and broaden my mind."

                   Lucas, like most other American tourists in Cuba last week, predicted that
                   the U.S. embargo could be lifted soon--either because Cuba's 73-year-old
                   president will die or because American attitudes about Cuba are changing
                   fast.

                   Fishermen on a towering boat from Austin were astonished at all the new
                   hotels, the Bennetton stores and the restaurants in Cuba.

                   The crew had come to Cuba on their way to deliver the million-dollar fishing
                   boat to a client in San Diego. The Hemingway Marina was the first stop of a
                   journey that would take them past Belize, Honduras, through the Panama
                   Canal and up the western coast of Mexico.

                   Cruise magazines have published a lot of stories about Cuba. They said they
                   wanted to see it before the whole island is turned into a big shopping mall.

                   "A lot of Americans have come down here and they told us how beautiful it
                   was," said one 28-year-old with a buzz cut and sun glasses. "When we
                   passed through the Coast Guard station, they asked us if we were going to
                   Cuba. And even they told us, `You're going to love it.' "

                   What was striking to him, he said, was the enormous potential for wealth he
                   saw all over Cuba. All the things that once made Cuba one of Americans'
                   favorite playgrounds are all still there. They just need the boost of some
                   American capital.

                   During his week in Cuba, he said, he visited a tobacco plantation in the
                   western city of Pinar del Rio. "It was really sad," he said. "The owner had
                   something like 30,000 pounds of tobacco and he had to sell it to the
                   government for about $200. What a waste."

                   The Texas crew asked not to be identified for fear that they would be
                   prosecuted for spending money in Cuba. However, one of them said that he
                   went to high school in Little Rock, Ark., with President Clinton and that he
                   plans to write some letters about Cuba to the White House.

                   "As far as I am concerned, the U.S. is responsible for a lot of the way people
                   live over here," he said. "If this place opened up to (American) tourism the
                   economy would be booming overnight."

                   Even with the U.S. embargo, tourism has become the engine of Cuba's
                   economy, said Miguel Figueras, an adviser to the Cuban Minister for Foreign
                   Investment. Estimated revenue from tourism last year was $1.4 billion. The
                   number of hotel rooms in Cuba has increased from 13,664 in 1990 to about
                   26,000 today.

                   By the year 2010, Figueras said, the government expects some 7 million
                   tourists to visit Cuba. Plans have been made for the construction of almost
                   60,000 hotel rooms.

                   One negative product of the tourist boom is rampant prostitution. Hotel
                   lobbies, discos and the Malecon, Havana's seaside highway, are filled at night
                   with girls wearing Spandex catsuits and platform jellies who offer their bodies
                   for dinner and $5, more than average Cubans -- including college graduates
                   -- earn in a week.

                   One American screenwriter in Havana two weeks ago said candidly that sex
                   was certainly one of the reasons he wanted to come to Cuba.

                   "Sex is a big draw," he said. "Guys definitely come here to get (sex). The
                   average American slob, with 500 bucks in his pocket, is big bounty. He can
                   get lucky, cheap."

                   But on the morning after his first night in Cuba, the desperation of the women
                   he met turned him off. So many women accosted him as soon as he walked
                   out of his hotel, promising to do anything he wanted, that it ruined his mood.

                   "Part of it is that the whole sport is turned around. There is no challenge," he
                   said. "I feel like they are the fishermen and I am the big fish in the sea.

                   "It's all so disheartening. It's all so exploitative."

                   Those feelings of concern subsided quickly. He had to make some calls to
                   make plans for that night.

                   "A friend told me to go to the bars in Miramar," he said, referring to one of
                   Havana's last elite enclaves. "They attract a different class of women."