New in Cuba - April 2016

New in Cuba

April 2016 - The Plaza del Carmen in Camaguey, Cuba and the famous Norberto. 

You can see both him and his statue in the park daily. 

Everyone I meet who finds out that I guide tours in Cuba always asks me, "What are the new changes in Cuba since we've normalized relations?" My answer, "Not much." That's because we haven't normalized relations; we are attempting to normalize them. Big difference. 

"Oh, but now that things have changed, I can legally travel to Cuba." No. Wrong. If you couldn't legally travel to Cuba before, you still can't. The embargo is still in place, and tourism for American citizens is still illegal. What did change was that the people who could travel legally before have to do less paperwork now. You, as an America, cannot just go to Cuba. There are exceptions to this, such as people-to-people tours. You know...like the tours we do at Knowing The Way Travel :)

I just got back from Cuba with an amazing group of people - we went from Havana to Camaguey, with stops in between to places such as Remedios, Santa Clara and the Che Memorial, and Playa Bonita. 

So...what's was going on in Cuba?

Everyone was talking about Rápido y Furioso (The Fast and the Furious 8) which was filming around la Habana. Here is a sample of that conversation:

"Did you know that the Fast and the Furious was filming in Cuba?" asked every Cuban I know or met.

"Yes."

"Yes, with the big one. He's here," they said.

"You mean, 'The Rock?'"

"Sí, sí, da' Rock," they responded.

For someone from San Francisco, a place where films and tv programs are shot all the time, the filming was just an inconvenience that caused traffic jams, but the Cubans were very excited to have the filming take place there.

There was a lot of talk about how many foreigners were now visiting Cuba, and hope about what changes will come with the increase in tourism, new government policies and when the embargo ends. I would describe it, not as change, but as waiting for change to happen.