This Year in Havana

Listening to Cuban music from my iTunes library today, and investigating how we might spend some time in Cuba this year.

Our goal is to be able to travel to different parts of the country and to meet and get to know people there who are interested in some of the things we are interested in.  Music, dance, history are at the top of the list.  We aren't particularly interested in joining one of the many tour groups that have been and are being organized to comply with OFAC's restrictions.  For one thing, they are expensive and for another they are conducted as guided tours, with little opportunity to engage the average people of Cuba, people like ourselves.  

Americans, those who don't have relatives in Cuba at least, still aren't free to travel to the neighboring island without restriction, due to the regulations imposed by the Office of Foreign Asset Control, under the U.S. Treasury Department.  Those with a Cuban family connection, on the other hand, are permitted to travel there with some regularity and to bring large amounts of U.S. goods with them, as the picture here shows.

There are scheduled charter flights from several U.S. airports, notably Miami and New York and Los Angeles.  And more recently, OFAC licensed eight additional airports, none of which are from the closest airport of all, Key West International.  I've toyed with the idea of traveling there by boat, but I don't any boat owner or captain who'd risk the loss of their vessel to confiscation or the imposition of large fines.

I've been told that it's possible, and quite easy to go to the Bahamas or Mexico and catch a flight from there, and I know of those who've done it.  I know someone here who can put us in contact with a family offering lodging, meals and transportation at what seem to be very affordable prices.

Our primary objective this year then, will be to go to Cuba on our own terms and to get to know something about the neighbors next door.  It would be even better, in fact to do that with friends from Key WestAnd so the title:  this Year in Havana.

Do let us know if you're interested.  We can get some folks to tell us how best to do it.