matt_m__toronto_ Posted February 9, 2006 Share Posted February 9, 2006 i'm not talking some 1 week resort you went to with all inclusivemargaritas and such, but who's seen the real deal? looking for an area or two for some doc photography as well as some rand r. no comforts please and no buses of tourists. 3 doller beachshacks welcome :) suggestions or some offline talk?cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raymond_tai Posted February 9, 2006 Share Posted February 9, 2006 Not to hijack your thread matt. I just want to ask whether it is legally possible for US citizens to go to Cuba? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matt_m__toronto_ Posted February 9, 2006 Author Share Posted February 9, 2006 i think it may be legal to go there, but illegal to spend money there. something absurd like that. one more reason to be thankful i live in a free country. :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
socke Posted February 9, 2006 Share Posted February 9, 2006 I have, 3$ is not enough, plan for 20 to 25 including food in a Casa Particular where you have an airconditioned room with a small bathroom of your own.<br> <br> Lots of crappy pictures from Matanzas <a href="http://www.hett.org/folder.php?id=8" target="_blank">here</a> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
socke Posted February 9, 2006 Share Posted February 9, 2006 I forgot one important thing! Visit Cuba as soon as possible. When Fidel is gone and there's a Starbucks, McDonald and Burger King on every corner it will be just another caribbean island with this toilet cleaner out of a chemical plant Bacardi sells as rum :-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matt_m__toronto_ Posted February 9, 2006 Author Share Posted February 9, 2006 agreed! i'm planning on going end feb/march. let's hope castro hangs in there ;) i'm just trying to get the ins of the place and contact with someone who really knows their way around. time would be limited (2-3 weeks) so i dont want any bs days. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
david-m Posted February 9, 2006 Share Posted February 9, 2006 I travelled around for a month on my bicycle and if you are into this idea then it's a fantastic way to travel and see the bits 'inbetween' the tourist areas. I think that if you rent a car you can get to any remote bit you want easily but actually if I was to do it again (without a bicycle) then I would hitch rides (busses, trucks, private cars). The people are really welcoming and it would be a constantly good way to meet them and take photos. There are cheap places to stay all over the Island - you just need to ask the locals. Enjoy. David Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matt_chamberlain Posted February 9, 2006 Share Posted February 9, 2006 Matt, I'd like to spend several months in Cuba this spring, but I'm worried about getting the proper "license"...<br><br>From <a href="http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/cis/cis_1097.html">http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/cis/cis_1097.html</a>: <br><br> Other Specific Licenses<br><br> Specific licenses may be issued by OFAC, on a case-by-case basis, authorizing travel transactions by the following categories of persons in connection with the following activities:<br><br> * ~<br><br> * Free-Lance Journalism ﾖ Persons with a suitable record of publication who are traveling to Cuba to do research for a free-lance article. Licenses authorizing transactions for multiple trips over an extended period of time are available for applicants demonstrating a significant record of free-lance journalism. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peter_evans4 Posted February 9, 2006 Share Posted February 9, 2006 <p>Matt, tell 'em that <a href="http://www.photo.net/shared/community-member-all?proc_name=bboard&user_id=585550">right here</a> is your significant record of freelance journalism.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matt_m__toronto_ Posted February 9, 2006 Author Share Posted February 9, 2006 matt, why the worry for a 'proper' license? fly to canada or mexico and transfer to cuba. customs will not stamp your passport. hundreds of ya'll down there do this daily. matt m (toronto, canada, free to travel at will) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
socke Posted February 9, 2006 Share Posted February 9, 2006 a couple of month is a problem, the usual tourist visa to Cuba is limited to 30 days and can be extended to another 30 at the local authorities. You have to buy some special stamps to "pay" for this service in a bank. I think they are called sellos and you have to have 25 CUC worth of those. Another posibility is to fly to Jamaica from Havana and return the same day with a new 30 day visa :-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tony_senzaorbi Posted February 9, 2006 Share Posted February 9, 2006 "one more reason to be thankful i live in a free country. :)" A lot of Cubans wish they did too. I was there on an educational junket seven years ago. The conditions most people live in are deplorable, none of the money filters down to them from the tourism from Canada and other countries that serves to support Castro's regime. Not a political rant here, just the sad facts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robert_m3 Posted February 9, 2006 Share Posted February 9, 2006 Tony, they don't live much different than people on the other islands. And they have jobs working at tourist hotels and destinations. Too bad that there's not more available with the US boycott. For truly awful conditions try Haiti. It's not even communist, go figure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robert_m3 Posted February 9, 2006 Share Posted February 9, 2006 Matt, the area around Santiago de Cuba is wonderful and about as far away culturally from Varadero as it gets. The lush green of Holguin is fantastic, too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brambor Posted February 9, 2006 Share Posted February 9, 2006 right on. Cuba's conditions have nothing to do with ideology. Try Dominican Republic. Another fine example. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sergio_ortega7 Posted February 9, 2006 Share Posted February 9, 2006 Haiti is truly hell on earth, and the Dominican Republic is not much better. The level of poverty in Cuba is not nearly as jarring as it is in the Dominican Republic. The vast gulf between the wealthy business and ruling classes in the Domincan Republic and the poor are so shocking as to make one cry. In Cuba pretty much everyone is destitute. When Castro took over he promised to make everyone equal....he did, now everyone is poor. At least the Cuban people have a strong sense of national pride and identity, and the island still retains its charm and beauty. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tony_senzaorbi Posted February 9, 2006 Share Posted February 9, 2006 We did visit several carribbean island nations on the same trip. Communism, socialism, and captalism are all economic philosophies, independent of the form of government, which in both Haiti and Cuba are dictatorships (sham elections aside). Haiti is basically blacklisted for tourism and has little to no interest from outside investors while Cuba is the opposite, yet the general populations of both live quite similarly. If Cuba was a true communist nation the populace would share equally in the wealth. The real money (not talking about the people paid low wages to work at the resorts)flows offshore, minus a chunk that sticks to the palms of those in power. Now don't misconstrue this as me being pro-embargo. Regardless of the reasons we might want to sanction Castros regime today, they aren't the same reasons we imposed the embargo some 45 years ago during the peak of the cold war...a tactic which BTW failed to achieve its goal long before Canada and European nations had any role in Cuba's economy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joshroot Posted February 9, 2006 Share Posted February 9, 2006 Matt knows this already, but I went to cuba for a month in 2003. Er....wait....If any of the US govt's "we spy on you so our enimies don't have to!" spooks are reading, I completely deny the pervious statement. In any case, feel free to drop me a line if you have Cuba questions that I might be able to answer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matt_m__toronto_ Posted February 9, 2006 Author Share Posted February 9, 2006 josh, sent you a mail today as requested from your user. same one still? cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ross_macdonald Posted February 9, 2006 Share Posted February 9, 2006 I haven't been to Cuba, but the NFB/Jane Bunnett film/DVD 'Cuban Odyssey: Spirits of Havana' is lovely(as are many of her CD's), and I think that Jane and her husband Larry Cramer are based in Toronto... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
charles_gravely Posted February 9, 2006 Share Posted February 9, 2006 Hi Matt, I wentlast January for six days with my brother and father to take some pics around the country. Flew to Havanna, rented a car and drove all over the place. It was an incredible experience. Havanna is wonderful but the secret, of course, is to get out of the big city and into the small towns and hamlets. It's no big deal. Just get a flight to Havanna go from there. You can rent a car, bring your bike, hitch-hike, hop in one of these 'cattle trucks'. You can stay in a hotel, motel, peoples houses. If you don't have the Lonely Planet guide to Cuba, you should start there. I have the Jan 2004 version. If this happens to be the latest version, you can take my copy. Make sure you get the latest because even since I was there only one year ago some rules have changed with respect to currency. When I went, the way to go was to bring Canadian dollars and exchange them at the bank for convertable pesos. You can also take a cash advance on your credit card issued from a Canadian bank. Once you get into the small towns you have to find a way to get some of the real local currency so you can live in their economy rather than the double economy. This was no problem when I was there but I believe it is harder now. One day when we were hiking off the trails in the mountains, we stumbled upon a hide-out dug into the hill. It is a cavern made of brick arched to support the weight of the dirt. There are shooting ports at the far end. It is quite invisible from the trail. I probably have an over-active imagination but it looks like nobody knows it's there, except for perhaps Che himself. It is over-grown, not a scrap of garbage. I can tell you where it is if you want to check it out. I will tell you in person and you will have to keep the secret. At the same time I can show you my picture of Che holding a Leica M with a visoflex. Charles (toronto) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joshroot Posted February 9, 2006 Share Posted February 9, 2006 Don't worry too much about getting Cuban Pesos. Every single person in Cuba will be happy to take US$ (don't know about Canadian $ though). At least that was the case in my experience. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eliot_rosen1 Posted February 9, 2006 Share Posted February 9, 2006 "but who's seen the real deal?" Try the jails to find political prisoners who have "experienced" Cuba. Or the cemeteries to find those tortured and murdered by Castro. Or perhaps ask the refugees who risked their lives to get out of that place. Or the people who maybe don't want there children to grow up as property of the state with no future. That's the Cuban "experience". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joshroot Posted February 9, 2006 Share Posted February 9, 2006 I'll be happy to delete this thread if anyone wants to continue the political argument from the "Che" thread. If you have issues with the Cuba govt, good for you. But this thread isn't about that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eliot_rosen1 Posted February 9, 2006 Share Posted February 9, 2006 I'll be happy to delete this thread if anyone wants to continue the political argument from the "Che" thread. The subject of the thread is "who's experienced cuba?" And there are already political comments well before mine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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