- Kelly O
- At SODO’s new Cafe Con Leche.
A couple I know went to Cuba for their honeymoon. It remains illegal for US citizens to travel to Cuba, and while the policy shows signs of crumbling, they still could have received a heavy fine. They bought a British guidebook, made their arrangements through a Canadian travel agency, and flew through Cancún instead of Vancouver (because it was wintertime, and coming back from Vancouver with a tan might look peculiar). They traveled with a large amount of cash for all their expenses—you can’t use a credit card in a place you’re not supposed to be—and they brought nothing back except one tiny shell. They left the guidebook in the Cancún airport.
They said they loved Cuba. They said their hotel in Havana was palatial, with a central courtyard full of flowers and slightly slanting stairs; their room was vast, with marble floors and three balconies and a sitting room with statuary, and it cost them under $100 a night. They said they went to bars where Hemingway drank, with rattan ceiling fans stirring the air; they said they walked through streets lined with beautiful buildings with peeling paint and hanging laundry and, occasionally, one that was just a facade with a tree growing in a pile of rubble behind it. When they got tired of walking, they said they took a coco-taxi, which was like a big tin football helmet welded to a scooter, with the drivers fearless of all the barreling 1950s American cars and grinding trucks and giant ruts and plentiful exhaust…