A trip to Cuba has lost some of its allure in recent years

Morgan Stinemetz
A trip to Cuba has lost some of its allure in recent years

A couple of weeks back, a guy I know from sailing -- he had raced on my
boat once and was a good last-minute addition to the crew -- buttonholed
me at the Bird Key Yacht Club and quizzed me about going down to Cuba
again on my own boat and taking him along for the ride.

I explained to him that the last time I went, I hadn't researched the
weather window as well as I might have and had taken a rather good
pounding in my 27-foot boat on both legs of the trip. I didn't want to
repeat that.

I think I also told the guy that it wasn't legal for him to go. Well,
actually it's legal. He just can't spend money there.

When I went down in April of 2004, there were a couple of perks for
journalists in existence. We could bring back cigars and rum. That door
slammed shut in September of that year, courtesy of George W. Bush. Now,
journalists, though they can go to Cuba without a specific license to do
so, can bring back only what everyone else can, and that's usually
limited to cultural items like pamphlets, books and photographs.

Michael Moore, counterculture cinematographer, has just produced a film
that is titled "SiCKO." As part of his film, he took some American
people, whose medical options had run out, to Cuba and also to the U.S.
base at Guantánamo Bay in an attempt to get them the same excellent
medical care that the government claims it is giving to the terrorist
suspects incarcerated there.

Moore is now being investigated by the Treasury Department for going to
Cuba. The news story I read said that he had originally applied for
permission to go to Cuba in 2006 but he never heard back from the Office
of Foreign Assets Control. He went anyway. That doesn't surprise me.
Moore is always swimming against the current.

Does he touch a nerve with his films? Undoubtedly. Basically, Moore
baited the federal government, and Treasury responded. Treasury has, in
times past, instigated a lot of investigations for supposed Cuban
embargo infractions.

The Department of Justice gets headlines when it indicts some sailor for
going to Cuba, but all the cases I know of have been settled out of
court, with the added caveat that the people who have been charged
cannot talk about the settlement. It keeps the myth of governmental
invincibility intact, I believe.

The general license regulations permitting journalistic travel to Cuba
do not specifically mention cinematographers. That raises the question
of whether people like Moore can be placed into the journalistic
category. Steve Morrell, the publisher of the sailing magazine
Southwinds, thinks that Moore qualifies handily. "Michael Moore is as
much a journalist as Hunter S. Thompson was," Morrell said. "He has
money behind him, and the government will not be able to intimidate him
like it has much smaller fish.

In my view, the appeal of Cuba to Americans has to do with its
"forbidden" status. Only a very few of us can legitimately go there, and
even those who may have a legal basis for going may be subject to
governmental harassment when they get back.

The truth of the matter is that Cuba is definitely Third World. The
three times I've been, I have stayed pretty close to Havana out of
necessity, with some forays into the countryside for several hours, no
more. Havana is a crumbling city, its historical significance fading
away like the patina of time-worn paint. Our embargo has helped that
happen. Buildings actually fall down from lack of maintenance in Cuba.
The Cubans have a name for the sound they make.

In my opinion, Cuba is far from the bargain it once was. When I was
there in 1999, a box of Romeo y Julieta cigars cost $35. In 2004, the
same box was $135.

The Hotel Nacional in downtown Havana was terrific, full of action and
with first-class service. We drank there, but we didn't eat there. Too
expensive. It will take a person some time to find the best places and
best prices, and until that time the money just drains away.

I'd go to Cuba again if the trip were guaranteed to be painless, both
from a travel standpoint or from a financial standpoint. I also want to
learn how to dance salsa better than I can now. But going to Cuba isn't
as easy as it was the first time I went down in 1994. Cuban officials
that one must deal with have their own sets of rules, even if their
drug-sniffing dogs are delightfully esoteric. A dachshund?

Bottom line is Cuba is far more expensive than it once was, and that is
not particularly alluring.

Last modified: May 26. 2007 12:00AM

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