 |
| May 2009 | Golf Revolution Activities |
by Charles Briscoe-Knight |
First there’s the wind. This might not be a ‘links’ in the strict sense of Turnberry or Ballybunion, but it has the same unpredictable breezes. Architecturally, Varadero is probably best summed up as tropical parkland meets with Florida lakes, via a piece of beachfront links. On a generally flat, but sometimes undulating piece of ground called the San Bernardino crags, are the two loops of nine holes re-designed by Canadian les Furber. They are interspersed with salt water lagoons that connect directly with the sea. The front nine can be considered slightly easier, as 10 to 18 require a decidedly cautious piece of course management. |
||
|
| June 2008 | Cuban cabarets—Socialism and sensuality! Travel features |
by Christopher P. Baker |
The lights go down... as a troupe of near-naked showgirls in silver thigh-high boots and glowing chandeliers atop their heads appears at the back of the auditorium. Their see-through fishnet body suits drip with silver baubles that dangle like still-wet tiny fishes, and they strut down the aisle like sex washing up from the sea. |
||
 |
| Aug 2008 | Fishing in Cuba Activities |
by Joe Prem |
Other than the Florida Keys, this is perhaps the best place in the world to catch a big permit on a fly. There are both good numbers of big permit, and superb permit flats to be found in the Jardines de la Reina. Flats that are barely out of the water or just below the surface at low tide are two to three feet deep on a high incoming tide - perfect habitat for the largest permit. Many of these flats are bordered by deep water- exactly the same kind of conditions you see in the Florida Keys where most of the world record permit have been caught. It is not uncommon to pole up to these flats and see a half a dozen permit tailing |
||
|
| May 2008 | Inside Cuban Culture Travelogue |
by Chen Lizra |
It was super hot outside and it felt so nice walking on the streets at night wearing so little. The soft wind felt like it was caressing my skin. The heat mixes with seduction and the Mojitos are so alcoholic that they make you tipsy. It’s hard to walk and not smile at life. |
||
 |
| Feb 2008 | The ideal 3 week itinerary Activities |
by Christopher P. Baker |
Cuba is made for tropical tourism: the diamond-dust beaches and bathtub-warm seas the color of peacock feathers; the bottle-green mountains and jade valleys full of dramatic formations; and the ancient cities, with their flower-bedecked balconies, rococo churches, and palaces and castles evocative of the once mighty power of Spain. There are the cabarets to visit, and mojitos and cuba libres to enjoy, and the world's finest cigars to smoke fresh from the factory, as you rumble down the highway in a chrome-spangled '55 Cadillac to the rhythm of the rhumba on the radio. |
||
 |
| Jun 2008 | Cuba—travelling off the radar Travelogue |
by Julie Schwietert Collazo |
For American travelers, Cuba remains one of the last tantalizing forbidden travel destination spots in the world. While Americans may not want to visit some other countries, they can go almost anywhere with relative ease. Officially, though, Cuba is off the American traveler's map, or so it seems. The laws regarding Americans' travel to Cuba are complex, requiring patient scrutiny, a high tolerance for bureaucracy, and a long wait for those who wish to visit Cuba under officially sanctioned pretenses, which are shrinking exponentially each year. |
||
 |
| Apr 2008 | An explosive Christmas —Las Parandas de Remedios— Places |
by Silvia Gomez |
For most of us, the 24th of December—Nochebuena or Christmas Eve—is marked with a quiet family dinner. The only interruption might be the sound of Christmas carols at the door. This was probably once the case in the old Cuban town of Remedios. But in the 1820s, everything changed. A young priest named Francisco Vigil de Quiñones had noticed that in the chilly mornings of the last days of the year, his congregations were dwindling. |
||
 |
| Mar 2008 | Calle Honda Hamejon – Havana rumba Travel features |
by Silvia Gomez |
Callejón de Hammel is one of the shortest streets in the city, barely 200 meters long, delimited by Aramburu and Espada streets. It owes its name to Fernando Belleau Hammel, of French-German descent, who smuggled weapons during the American Civil War and who in the early 20th century, settled down in Havana, at this dead-end street which now bears his name. He opened a foundry and built houses for his workers. The alley’s first fame came during the 1940s and 50s when the home of trovador Tirso Díaz became the gathering place for a group of singers and composers—friends of Ángel Díaz, Tirso’s son—who constituted the founding members of filin, |
||
 |
| Mar 2008 | The Orchids of Cuba Activities |
by Greta Publications |
Thousands of species of orchids add to Cuba’s natural beauty and may be found from in the 4 corners of Cuba from the plains and low hills through the mountain ranges of Guaniguanico (including Viñales), and Guamuhaya (central Cuba), and the Sierra Mastra. One of the most special places with 178 species is the Nipe-Sagua-Baracoa massif which is also home to Lepanthes silvae, one of the world's smallest orchids, standing barely 5 mm high. |
||
 |
| Mar 2008 | Cuba, the landshells Paradise Activities |
by María Teresa Gené |
Liguus tree snails have unique designs and colour-patterns making them exquisite masterpieces of Nature. Liguus lives in semideciduous and evergreen forests, the mogote vegetation complex, the coastal scrubland, shrub spinous lands, gallery forests and the secondary vegetation throughout the island, except for the province of Guantánamo where no updated reports exist. |
||
 |
| Mar 2008 | Outed by The Wall Street Journal Activities |
by Armando Menocal |
For the past eight years I’ve been carrying on a secret affair — one that I knew could result in imprisonment and a heavy fine. But I’d fallen for Cuba and fallen hard. My winters had been a flawless cycle of skiing Teton powder and rock climbing on spectacular overhanging rock walls in the Viñales Valley of Cuba. Knock on wood. After 37 years of climbing, this was as good as it gets. I was even paying for my tropical vacations by guiding pricey “eco-tourism” to my Cuban climbing areas.
|
||
 |
| Feb 2008 | Saratoga – Reborn Places |
by Silvia Gomez |
Standing on a portion of the former wall that once surrounded and protected the old city the Saratoga Hotel is, more than a century later, as magnificent and radiant as it must have been in its first days. The intervening years, however, have not been easy. In 1881 Palacios sued the builders for delays in the construction schedule. In turn, the engineers lodged a complaint concerning additions to the building work not included in the original contract. By 1888, with no agreement reached, the nearly completed building was beginning to deteriorate without ever having been occupied other than by ‘lowlife characters, tramps and ladies of pleasure’ |
||
 |
| Feb 2008 | Rock climbing in Cuba. (the new Yusemite) Activities |
by Armando Menocal |
One year after Fidel Castro had come down out of the Sierra Maestra Mountains to claim triumph for his revolution, he is to have declared, “The Revolution was the work of climbers and cavers.” Did the living icon and tireless voice of the Cuban Revolution really mean to credit the success of his revolution to climbers and cavers? |
||
 |
| Jan 2008 | Ten best dives in Cuba Activities |
by Eric Testi |
María la Gorda and Cabo de San Antonio International Diving Centres together have the most number and varied diving sites in Cuba. At the tip of Pinar del Río, they are wild and romantically located, with unforgettable sunsets and a string of beautiful long white sandy beaches. The Yemayá dive is very special. You begin with a descent down the vertical Yemayá wall and return via a “mysterious cave” having seen an abundance of fish, giant gorgonian and black coral. |
||
 |
| Jan 2008 | Cigar smoking in Havana – A visitor’s guide Travel features |
by Amir Simoney |
Havana is the Mecca for cigar smokers and one that is open all year round. Knowledge, experience, glamour and authenticity are all present in abundance on the tropical island that is home to the best cigars in the world. Cigars in Cuba are not just a part of the economy but are an intricate component of the country’s history, culture and everyday life. |
||
| Dec 2007 | Cool Days, Hot Nights-Parque Metropolitano Travel features |
by Conner Gorry |
On a hot summer night a little riverside amphitheater thrums with a thousand voices, the sweaty, cathartic chorus reaching deep into the surrounding woods. While young punks and pretty debutantes perch in giant jacarandas for a bird’s eye view of the onstage party, Cuba’s future IM their friends about what they’re missing. And what they’re missing is historic. |
||
 |
| Nov 2007 | The Malecon: Havana’s smile Travel features |
by Silvia Gomez |
No one can question the femininity of the city of Havana. The great Cuban poet Nicolás Guillén discovered her "sonorous hips" and many have succumbed to her flirtatiousness and elusiveness, attracted by an irresistible smile. It is a smile of nearly seven kilometres that reveals the city's character shaped over almost five centuries: outgoing, noisy, multicoloured, although with intervals of withdrawal and even adolescent-like shyness; open to all influences, heterogeneous and eclectic, determined to be herself, and not like any other; proud of her age and at the same time ready to take the risks of modernity. |
||
 |
| Bee hummingbirds Activities |
||
Among the more than 300 bird species found in Cuba is the bee hummingbird, the smallest bird on the planet and which is only found in Cuba and only in parts of the country at that.But, Pupo Ross cautions, even the eagle-eyed birdwatcher shouldn’t count on seeing one, as bee hummingbirds – which feed on honey and insects — are very rare. |
||
| Nov 2007 | Baracoa, the most beautiful land human eyes have seen Places |
by Christopher P. Baker |
Baracoa, Cuba's oldest city, is perfect for independent-minded travelers seeking somewhere just a little bit different. It has an atmosphere all its own. One as haunting in its fantastical unfamiliarity as it is enchanting in its beauty. The town's setting seems fit for a Hollywood epic. Baracoa spreadeagles below a dramatic flat-topped formation – El Yunque (the anvile) – that floats mysteriously above the surrounding hills, forming a great amphitheater flowing down to the Bahía Miel (Bay of Honey). |
||
 |
| Oct 2007 | Bonefish heaven in Cuba Activities |
by Mike Mareki |
A shadow flits across the flats. ‘Quince metors, dos horas’, (15 meters, 2 O’clock), barks Machito, the guide. The fisherman, now on his third visit to Las salinas in Cuba, whips his lightweight rod into action, landing an almost perfect cast. The smudgy looking little fly that resembles a tiny prawn plops perfectly on the calm water, three inches in front of a greedy five pound bonefish. Suddenly, the reel screams, and the bonefish is off like a bat out of hell heading for the mangroves. |
||
 |
| Jul 2007 | Museo de Bellas Artes Places |
by Juliet Barclay |
One mid-eighteenth century day in London, the Venetian painter Canaletto found himself a bit strapped for cash and decided that drastic measures had to be taken. Whipping out a handy blade, he sliced in half a rather long landscape he’d painted, to sell both halves separately. Now one half of Chelsea from the Thames hangs in Blickling Hall in Norfolk. The other half is in Havana in the Museo de Bellas Artes. |
||
 |
| Jun 2007 | Viva Cuba Beisbol Activities |
by Byron Motley and Kit Krieger |
In Havana, the local “Industriales” team are gods. They are the New York Yankees of Cuban baseball. Whether celebrated or loathed, there’s no getting around the fact that team Industriales is the islands most successful franchise. Point proven by the fact that in the post-revolutionary Castro era of baseball, the Industriales have reigned supreme and have practically had a monopoly as the winners of the most of the Cuban World Series classics. Losses to arch-rival Santiago de Cuba in the finals for the National Series championship over the past two seasons evoke as much discontent as do housing shortages, low wages, and a two-tiered currency system that sees Cubans paid in once currency (Cuban pesos) and shop in another (convertible pesos). |
||
 |
| May 2007 | The Hotel Nacional Places |
by Ian Stalker |
The Hotel Nacional de Cuba has seen mobsters and missiles alike during the more than 70 years that it has served as one of the world’s great celebrity hangouts, a role it continues today. The five-star hotel, which opened Dec. 30, 1930, quickly turned into a meeting place for everybody who was somebody, with entertainers like Frank Sinatra, Ava Gardner, Cesar Romero, John Wayne, Betty Grable, and Fred Astaire hobnobbing in a property that also drew such famed athletes as boxers Jack Dempsey and Rocky Marciano and baseball great Mickey Mantle, and heads of states, among them Winston Churchill. |
||
 |
| Apr 2006 | In search of music in Cuba Travel features |
by Karolien Verheyen |
Holguin was the place to visit the workshop of organ makers, in business since 1886, and the Malecon in Havana was a great place to attend some amazing jam sessions or 'penas'. On one of my daily strolls I dropped into Julia Valdes' visual arts gallery in Old Havana. The man who was looking after the place asked me why I was visiting Cuba. He gave me his card and told me he was a cultural promoter, after which he picked up the phone and then gestured to me I needed to speak with this person. That person was no one less than Bobby Carcasses… |
||
 |
| Feb 2007 | Havana's Renaissance Travel features |
by Juliet Barclay |
The restoration of Old Havana is internationally acclaimed as one of the world’s most innovative and exciting projects of urban renaissance. It is all more the remarkable for the context in which it is taking place: Cuba’s ongoing struggle to establish itself as a political and economic force to be reckoned with. |
||
 |
| Mar 2007 | The 2007 Hemmingway fishing tournament Travel features |
by Steve Gibbs |
Like all the best fishing stories, mine began in a bar. One evening in Havana, I was introduced to a man called Stewart, an affable commercial manager in a London building firm. It turned out he was part of the English team in this year's Hemingway fishing tournament. In fact he was the only Englishman on his boat, and he was taking on recruits. |
||
 |
| Feb 2007 | Havana: an intensely inhabited city Travel features |
by Daniel Barclay |
Visitors to the Cuban capital frequently remark on how busy the city seems to be, how the life of the city is inescapable and either delightful or irritating, depending on their disposition and expectations as a tourist in a socialist Caribbean island. The fabric of the city is often crumbling, yet Cuban life goes on with a kind of cheerful self-absorption and confidence despite (or because of?) the lack of material trappings and 'advances' that we are used to in western cities |
||
 |
| Jan 2007 | Havana Blue Travel features |
by Juliet Barclay |
Beneath the centuries of multi-coloured limewash in Old Havana’s eighteenth century mansions, archaeologists often discover elaborate and beautiful mural paintings in which an exquisite powdery blue predominates. This has come to be known as ‘Havana Blue’ and the colour is still used all over the city, gently echoing the triumphant azure of the Cuban sky. |
||
 |
| Now 2006 | The hottest beach in Cuba. Places |
by Juliet Barclay |
However does one find the best beach in Cuba? There are an awful lot to choose from and most of them are fabulous. The longest and most famous is Varadero on the north coast, where you would be hard put to it to walk the length of the beach in a day, especially after all the cocktails that you somehow find yourself drinking en route. |
||
 |
| Oct 2006 | Las Terrazas—Ideal trip from Havana. Places |
by Juliet Barclay |
Las Terrazas is the weekend retreat for overheated habaneros, especially in the summer. Who wants to go to the beach when the sea’s the temperature of soup and the sand’s too hot to walk on? While only an hour out of Havana, it feels a million miles away from the city. It’s a UNESCO biosphere, so great care is taken sensitively to develop the area and a reasonably steep entry fee is charged, to prevent the place becoming too overrun with day trippers. |
||
 |
| Jun 2005 | Paladares in Cuba Travelogue |
|
The name paladar comes from the Brazilian soap opera, Vale Todo (Anything Goes), which was extremely popular in Cuba in the early 1990s. Raquel, the enterprising protagonist of the telenovela, was a poor woman who moved from the Brazilian provinces to Rio. She worked as an itinerant food vendor on the famous beaches of Copacabana and eventually made it big after setting up her own chain of small restaurants, which she christened “Paladar.” |
||
| Sep 2008 | Isla de la Juventud Places |
by Christopher P. Baker |
Most visitors to Cuba bypass Isla de la Juventud — the Isle of Youth. Their loss. Our gain. Then again, this inverted tear-drop-shaped island in the shallow Gulfo de Batabanó, slung 100 kilometers below the underbelly of Havana province, isn't the easiest to get to. Nor is it well-endowed with tourist services. Far from it. But its fascinating history, sensational diving, and remarkable birding are among the many reasons to visit this off-beat highly and individual isle. |
||
| Jan 2008 | The Orchids of Cuba Activities |
by María Teresa Gené |
The first described species of Cuban orchids were those exported to Europe during the Spanish colonization, but it was not until the 19th century that the island was explored in search of orchids. These studies culminated in the publication of Catalogue of Cuban Orchids by Cuban botanist Julián Acuña Galé in 1938. |
||
Read complete article |
||
| Dec 2007 | Cuba's underwater treasures Activities |
by Diana Williams |
The attraction of Varadero’s waters has been increased fourfold by the sinking of a number of boats. Barco Patrullero, built in 1945, was a Russian – Koni class, patrol ship, used by Cuban navy in the 1980’s. In the late 1990’s it took on another role as an artificial reef. It’s a fascinating ship to visit. Ninety-seven metres long, with its hull at a depth of 28 metres, it still has its guns, surface to air missiles and smoke dispensers. Finning over the deck it is easy to let your imagination run riot, and transport yourself back into the cold war era, when suspicion surpassed all reason, and countries sought to protect themselves from their ideological enemies. |
||
 |
| Jan 2010 | 20 Favorite Moments in Cuba Travel features |
by Clair Boobbyer |
The weather-beaten coastal road between Pilón and Santiago de Cuba is remote and dramatic. It takes you past a canvas of lashing waves and cliffs that drop vertically onto the ocean road, which itself lie just yards from the sea. At times the road rollercoasters and the panoramic scenery unfold below. After hurricanes and bad storms, parts of the road and bridges are lost, making for some hair-raising driving; this is not a trip for the faint hearted but it’s the best drive in Cuba. |
||
 |
| Aug 2008 | Off-the-beaten-track Cuba Places |
by Christopher P. Baker |
Wild places are strewn like isles within isles. The varied ecosystems spell Nirvana to tourists who appreciate nature. Many areas are buried in thick rainforest brightened with tropical flowers. Other areas are desert-dry plateaus dotted with cactus. In fact, Cuba is sculpted to show off the full potential of the tropics, permitting you to journey metaphorically from the Amazon to a Swiss alpine forest. |
||
| Jun 2004 | Why Travel Is The Most Patriotic Act You Can Do. Q |
by Julie Schwietert Collazo |
Today is July 4. Time to reflect on independence. Freedom. Patriotism. What it means to be an American. In a sense, the country I call my homeland was founded upon the cherished value that the right to travel should be protected. The idea is implied by U.S. laws, which permit Americans to travel with greater ease and to more countries than perhaps any other government in the world. It is also inspired by the dramatic journeys of the first colonists who traveled long distances to establish one of the world’s most radical social and political experiments. |
||
| May 2004 | Sailing to Hemingway’s Cuba Q |
by Dave Schaefer |
We had been nervous for days as the boat was hauled for repairs at Peninsular Marine on Stock Island near Key West. Dream Weaver was showing some wear and tear after the first part of this voyage, the 2,000 miles from my home in Burlington, Vermont, just 45 miles from the Canadian border. I had been traveling south for almost five months, and now the challenges of the final short leg to Cuba were directly ahead. First, there was the Gulf Stream. Sailors don’t cross when the wind is out of the north and butting heads with the north-flowing Gulf Stream, kicking up square waves sometimes called “elephants” |
||
| Jan 2001 | Meeting the whale shark. Activities |
by Luisa Sacerdote |
The journey to the Queen's Gardens has been, as always, long and tiring: but these islands' charm, covered by mangroves and inhabited just by iguanas and tortoises, consists in this; here time doesn't exist: everything has remained the same as 500 years ago, before the arrival of Christopher Columbus, and the difficulties to get here makes them a paradise for few people. And every time is in some way a return home, "mi casa flotante entre cielo y mar", as they call here the floating platform on which we are lodging. |
||
| Dec 2000 | The Queen's Gardens: the last paradise. Activities |
|
Diving in Cuba is the dream of every skin diver: about 50 miles away from the Southern coast, in the middle of the Caribbean sea, there is an archipelago formed by hundreds of kayos, small isles of various dimensions, rich in mangroves and palm trees that stretch over extremely white and absolutely virgin beaches. The Queen's Gardens, so named because of their beauty by Christopher Columbus, cover a total length of 200 km from East to West, marking a coral barrier (the third largest in the world) which gives shelter to an uncountable number of species of fish and all kinds of coral. |
||
| Nov 2000 | Dancing with the sharks. Activities |
|
After a journey nearly 24 hours long, finally I'm in Jucaro. I hope Gualberto, the guide that has accompanied me on my last trip, has been informed about my arrival: I didn't have the possibility to call him, because here, in this remote corner of Cuba, obviously, phones don't exist. Luckily, there he is, on the quay, beside the Explorador, the boat that will take us to the Tortuga. |
||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| Hotels in Cuba | Places in Cuba | Restaurants in Havana | Entertainment in Havana | Things to do in Havana |
 |
| Jan 2010 | Cuba: A Decade In The Life Of A prAna Headband Activities |
by Armando Menocal |
Yarobys García, is probably Cuba’s leading climber today, an exceptional climber, and committed to the challenge to do new routes and to the tradition of mentorship. A recent picture I saw taken by him shows a very faded mustard-colored prAna headband being worn by a young Cuban named Yandy working a new project. (Nirvana, 8a/8a+). |
||
