You're Going to Cuba?!

"Isn't that illegal?"

"I thought you couldn't do that!"

"What about the poisonings at the American embassy?"

"Isn't it dangerous?"

"What group are you going with?"

"Are you allowed to take pictures?"

Will you have an escort?"

Surprise. Shock. Fear.  These have been the predominant responses of my mostly middle-aged friends to my upcoming Cuba trip. And these folks have been around the block a few times. They remember (or wore) beads and bell bottoms and have since traveled the world. But not to Cuba.

1967 at Guantanamo Naval Base

Guantanamo desalination plant created after Castro cut water supply.

Why this vague sense of danger? My twenty-something sons have no trepidation about Cuba. To my generation, however, Cuba is like a dark continent... a black hole... forbidden fruit, perhaps... mysterious, alluring, out of reach. We know about the cigars, the music, Havana, salsa, rumba, the embargo, Castro (cue ominous music) and more recently the detention facility at Guantanamo (more ominous music). Perhaps we're suffering from a Cold War hangover. We remember the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis; for decades, we read and heard about human rights abuses in Cuba at the hands of the evil dictator, Castro, perilously close to our southern border. Our collective subconscious is a messy stew of truth and fiction. But hey, the Soviet Union is long gone. Dominoes is a game.  There are no ICBMs on our southern border. Castro has been replaced by Raul. A fresh breeze is a- blowing and the times they are a changin' !

Enjoy a cup of strong coffee and snap out of it!