Catching the winds of change in Cuba

HAVANA -- It's the tail end of our weekend in this tropical communist stronghold, and a minor revolution is brewing.

For the past three days, our band of 13 travelers on an Insight Cuba tour has been shepherded through the decaying capital of America's nearest adversary under a year-old, U.S.-sanctioned "people-to-people" program.

But since Treasury Department rules require mandatory participation in "a full-time schedule of educational exchange activities," it hasn't been a salsa-and-cigar-fueled beach escape. Instead, we've heard lectures at a day care center for seniors, a literacy museum featuring a blackboard with machine gun holes allegedly from the CIA, and a community project aimed at reviving traditional folk culture.

Now, as we once again clamber aboard our state-of-the-art, Chinese-made tour bus (a stark contrast to the three-wheeled rickshaws and Eisenhower-era cars that cruise Havana's crumbling, heartbreakingly beautiful colonial streets), our Cuban guide, José Ramón Rodriguez Sicilia, gives us an unexpected dose of democracy. We could drive 45 minutes to a private home and museum owned by elderly fans of vintage American jazz, or head back to our faded-glory hotel for a nap, a dip in the pool or a cocktail in the same bar once frequented by the likes of Al Capone and Graham Greene.

The hotel wins, but José— concerned about possible repercussions from an unauthorized schedule deviation — persuades us to press on. The mojitos, it seems, will have to wait.

Off-limits to most American vacationers since Fidel Castro took power in 1959, this Caribbean "isla non grata" about 90 miles south of Key West has long drawn sun-starved Canadians and Europeans. Now, tourism both on and off the beach is a key driver of the country's officially socialist but increasingly capitalistic economy.

But "the biggest issue is that Cuba just has too little capacity for the demand right now," notes Cuba expert Christopher Baker, a guidebook author and tour leader.

And as American interest in Cuba escalates — many "people-to-people" tours are sold out or wait-listed through 2012, and a Republican presidential win would likely eliminate them entirely — prices are on the upswing, as well.

According to Baker, the Cuban government just raised its rates for hotels and other tourist services by about 25% for U.S. operators during the upcoming winter season. As a result, he says, many of those 130 tour companies, museums and other organizations — some of which already charge upward of $500 per person, per day — will be forced to scale back their trips.

Adding to the uncertainty: Last month, in response to reports of "abuses" in the programs, the Treasury Department tightened regulations for its "people-to-people" licenses. U.S. companies now must provide a sample itinerary, assign a representative to each tour and explain how the exchanges would "enhance contact with the Cuban people, support civil society, and/or help promote the Cuban people's independence from Cuban authorities."

But for curious Americans willing to pay a premium and play by the rules, "it's the shortest distance you'll ever travel to enter a completely different world," says Peggy Goldman of "people-to-people" license holder Friendly Planet Travel.

A step back in time

The different world begins at the Havana airport, where a line of pre-revolutionary sedans-turned-taxis waits for passengers and billboards decry the lingering impact of the U.S. blockade.

And for tour member Elisabeth Munder of West Palm Beach, who is visiting with her husband, Adam, and two friends, it continues at one of the group's first stops, the closed-for-renovation National Capitol.

Within minutes of our arrival, we're surrounded by hucksters dubbed jineteros, a nickname based on the Spanish word for jockeys (meaning they ride on tourists' backs). But alongside the touts offering photo ops in a gleaming convertible, a very pregnant woman sidles up to Munder and tugs on her arm with a soft-spoken request — for her empty plastic water bottle.

'No one is starving here'

That firsthand view of Cuban economics will be echoed elsewhere this weekend, as will our guide's fears that we're getting a bad impression. The following day, when a muscular young man cradling a puppy stands at the door of the tour bus hoping for a few pesos, José exhorts us not to cave: "No one is starving here," he insists. "We have a saying in Cuba about people like him: He should be out in the fields cutting sugar cane."

Our itinerary, like those of other "people-to-people" programs, includes a mix of standard cultural draws and places other tourists wouldn't see. We take a walking tour of Old Havana, where sultry grandmas in spandex tops sway to yet another rendition of the Buena Vista Social Club's hit Chan Chan, and watch a cannon blast ceremony at La Cabana, an 18th-century fort overlooking the harbor.

And at the National Literacy Museum, we're greeted by personable director Luisa Campos Gallardo, herself a product of Castro's successful year-long campaign to teach more than 700,000 people to read and write. Among the exhibits: photographs and letters from the project's 100,000 volunteers, mostly teenagers, and a blackboard laced with bullets that Gallardo says were fired during the botched, CIA-led invasion of the Bay of Pigs in 1961.

No matter where we go, we're in a bubble.

Since the Cuban government frowns on U.S. operators booking the growing ranks of privately owned restaurants known as paladares, we generally wind up at government-owned places with less-than-memorable cuisine (albeit an always-included cocktail). Even at two notable exceptions — Cafe del Orient, with tuxedoed waiters and a prime location in Old Havana, and a roast chicken restaurant called El Aljibe — we're served a set menu and surrounded by other tourists.

But Susan Dare of Franklinville, N.J., who booked the trip as a 50th birthday gift for her husband, Doug, is glad she came.

"I was thinking we'd go to block parties, have some rum and share some crazy conversations," says Dare. While that scenario hasn't panned out, they did have a memorable encounter with a hotel chef as they waited for the tour bus: "He asked us, 'So, how's America? Pretty great?' " recalls Dare, and "he felt like a friend we hadn't seen in years."

And so, it turns out, do our gray-haired hosts at the Esquina del Jazz. Within minutes of our arrival in the living-room-turned-museum, we're comrades in arms — picking up the finer points of swing, boogieing to vinyl recordings of Sonny Rollins and Dizzy Gillespie, and discovering the true meaning of people to people.