How to Fly to Havana and NOT Lake Havasu

#2 in a series ...     (previous post was #1, "Say my name:    CUBA")

"This plane's destination is Havana, Cuba."


Those were words no American air traveler wanted to hear.   Until quite recently, it meant the plane had been hijacked.   You weren't going to Miami after all.

But in 2015, if you've been working for weeks to make a trip to Cuba happen, it's a phrase to gladden the heart.

As I wrote in my previous post "Say my name:  CUBA", I saw the chance this year to take a trip to Cuba without flouting U.S. laws.   I created an education exchange program requiring me to put on demonstration Toastmasters meetings in Cuba, that bastion of free speech.

Once I'd worked out a legal reason to go to Cuba, I had only to book the tickets.   What could be simpler?   Go to Orbitz, find a flight.   Origination, SFO.  Destination, Havana.

Screenshot, Orbitz, June 31st 2015.  Destination "HAV".

Um ... no.  
Not Prague.  Nice as it is this time of year.    
Not Lake Havasu Arizona.   Nice as it isn't this time of year.  

Say my name:   CU-ba.    Ha-VA-na   CU-ba.      

I double-check the airport code.   HAV is right.   That's recognized around the world as HAVana's Jose Marti International airport.

Alright.   Orbitz is not keeping up with the times.   Here I am flying legally to Cuba, but Orbitz isn't down with that.

How about Expedia?   Surely ...

Well, that's certainly more choices.   But unless I am going blind, Havana Cuba is not among them.

However, Expedia will fly me to Gjoa Haven, Nunavut:

1. Gjoa Haven, Nunavut.  Sure looks nice.  The name Gjoa refers to the abundant animal fat available from the many sea mammals there.   Next trip, for sure.
2. Nunavut /ˈnuːnəˌvʊt/ (from Inuktitut: ᓄᓇᕗᑦ [ˈnunavut]) is the largest, northernmost, newest and least populous territory of Canada.

Yep, Expedia would literally rather fly me to the Arctic Circle than to the 4th largest Caribbean city, population over 2 million people, only 90 miles off the coast of Florida.   Raúl Castro wants me there ... Barack Obama wants me there ... but neither Expedia nor Orbitz will take me there.

I tried Miami as an origination.  That's not it.   Though to be clear, I did not want to clear US customs returning from Cuba in Miami.   It'd be just my luck to get the son of a Bay of Pigs veteran as my customs agent ... or someone with a keen awareness of the price of Cuban cigars.   I'll take my chances with U.S. Customs in nice, liberal, smoke-free San Francisco.

Now let me point out that while I planned my trip in May 2015, it's now July 2015 as I assemble these screen shots.   Orbitz and Expedia, bastions of the free enterprise system we trumpet to the world, still haven't caught up with U.S. policy to even offer me a flight.

What am I supposed to do, Mr. President?   Sign on for one of those ubiquitous tours?   Yes, I would recommend that to many people, especially if you don't speak Spanish.   Nothing wrong with it.  Just ... not what I had in mind.  I was picturing a footloose solo traveler knocking about, really getting to know the Cuban people ... a little more of an adventure, worthy of the many years I've been studying Spanish, and all the times I annoyed my kids with those "Destinos" DVDs.

OK then ... back to the original plan, but with the twist of being legal:

Fly to Mexico City.
     Fly to Havana.
          Smoke a Cigar.

Fly to Mexico City.
     Fly to SFO.
          Smoke a Cigar.

Surely Aeromexico ...

No?     Wait, I see the problem.   I need Multi-City.    OK, originate in SFO, then Mexico City, THEN Havana.

No?    Cancun?

No.

OK wait, maybe it's this "Buy ticket in the United States."    Maybe ... I can't buy a ticket in the U.S. for a legal trip to Cuba, no matter what airline I fly or where the intermediate stops are.   What if I say I don't want to buy my ticket in the US?   My Visa card is everywhere I want to be ... and quite a few places I don't want to be (Lake Havasu, Arizona; Gjoa Haven, Nunavut, among others).

I select "Mexico" as my "buy-ticket-in" choice.  Nada.

Wait, maybe the problem is I'm speaking gringo-lese to a Mexican site.    I change my language to "español (Mexico)" and ... allá está ... THERE IT IS!

La Habana exists as a destination if I use the site with Mexican Spanish, originate my trip in Mexico and pay in Mexican pesos.            Of course.   Why didn't I try that first?

Encouraged, I decide to force the action. I buy a round trip ticket San Francisco -> Mexico City -> San Francisco.    I will either be spending 9 days in Mexico, or I will find a way to make it from Mexico to Havana.

Gymnastics with Aeromexico, and several hours on the phone, including:

• a circular conversation with US-based Aeromexico support
• dead forwards to Mexico-based customer support 
• a trip at Aeromexico's insistence to the San Francisco Airport, where I would supposedly be able to buy my ticket at the counter.    I couldn't.

Finally, what worked was speaking to Aeromexico in ... Ireland!  That's the first time I've heard Irish-dialect English spoken with a Mexican accent.  The global economy at work! Thank you Irina Gonzalez.   Without your help, allowing an American to buy a legal air ticket on a Mexican airline with British Pounds booked in Ireland by an emigrée from Mexico, I might have ended up spending 9 days in Mexico ... a worthwhile trip, but not as high up my bucket list.

And so two weeks later I was sitting on an Aeromexico flight in Mexico City.   The doors closed and I heard "This plane's destination is HAVANA, CUBA."      And I was very, very pleased!

[Next Post:    "Yanqui Imperialistas wanted?"]

Say My Name: CUBA

#1 in a series ...

Cuba


To an American kid growing up in the '60s and '70s, even saying the name brings a chill.

The associations:   Fidel, army fatigues, Bay of Pigs, missile crisis, cigars, beards, sweat, music, a Woody Allen movie, embargo, blockade. Socialism, Communism. Imperialism (oh, that last one is us, supposedly).

Che and Fidel light one up.

The U.S. press fed us a steady diet of frightening images and stories of Fidel Castro and his dictatorship.

As a five-year-old I asked:   "Mom, why does the President of Cuba always dress in army clothes?   Don't presidents have to wear suits?"

Then as a young adult ... whispers of forbidden fruit.  Captivating music, beautiful people, cigars, rum ...  old American cars, and unchanging architecture:  a country stuck in a time warp, in part because of the very same U.S. laws that made a visit forbidden fruit.  Of course, getting to the fruit would have meant some minor rebellion against the U.S. laws.   But that was something we did frequently anyway, if smoking a joint counted as rebellion.

This temptation launched the back-of-the-mind notion to visit Cuba despite the Embargo. Today, they'd call it a "bucket-list item".





Hey, why should Fidel have all the fun?

In my twenties, I lived in South Florida. Cuba was tantalizingly close.

Before moving to Miami, I had thought only old people were Republicans. Then I met the young Cuban Americans of South Florida. They were my friends ... but they were voting for Ronald Reagan, and nothing I could say was going to talk them out of it.

Of course, they didn't think I should go to Cuba.

Many years passed. Marriage, kids ... kids grown, divorce. In December of 2014, the last of those life events finally settled, I started to plan a trip to Cuba. What's the big deal?

Fly to Mexico,
   fly to Cuba.
      Smoke a cigar.

Fly to Mexico,
   fly home.
      Smoke a cigar.

Simple.

But my brother the scientist, who consults with the government, tried to talk me out of it. "If you go to Cuba, they'll know."    "They" being our friendly US Homeland Security folks. I don't know them personally, but they seem friendly. Sort of.

My reply to my brother:  "They may know, but they don't care. Nobody cares. Watch: in a few years, things will change."

I didn't have to wait a few years. Only a few days later came the announcement that relations with Cuba were going to change. ¡Vamos, President Obama!  There's something to be said for a 2nd term President with nothing to lose. Obama calls it his "rhymes with bucket" list.  End the economic boycott against Cuba?   Why not?   Bucket!!

I now had the prospect of planning a legal trip to Cuba. I became determined to do just that. I studied the law.  

I also felt urgency, because the opening of relations means sooner or later Cuba will change. I wanted to see Cuba during the embargo.

I admit, I had a few advantages in pulling off this trip. I study languages as a hobby, and am what most Americans (but not many Latinos) would consider fluent in Spanish. And a good friend of mine, Mexican-American, started a bilingual Spanish-English Toastmasters club. More practice in Spanish. The time was right.

I put these things together and created an education and cultural exchange program for Spanish Bilingual Toastmasters San Francisco.  

My initial goal was to connect with the Toastmasters clubs in Cuba.

Except, there are no Toastmasters clubs in Cuba!

This was mildly surprising. Toastmasters is a worldwide organization. It's everywhere. Well, apparently not everywhere ... just places where free speech already thrives.

Like China.






Yep, Communist China.








OK, all of a sudden I had a political slant on this ... and a determination: bring public speaking and leadership skills development to the long-suffering people of Cuba. The better to promote a free exchange of ideas ... "truth, justice, and the American Way", as the Superman TV show used to say.

Or, to put it in the language of the White House, my goal is to "support civil society in Cuba, and enhance the free flow of information to, from, and among the Cuban people". Toastmasters the world over are nodding their heads. Yep, can do.

I built a written program allowing any member of my Toastmasters club to travel to Cuba. The specific section under the general license permitting travel to Cuba is #7. "7. Public performances, clinics, workshops, athletic and other competitions, and exhibitions." Toastmasters give exhibitions all the time: demonstration Toastmasters meetings, vital to the creation of new clubs. In this case, vital to the creation of a free speech movement in Cuba.

I sipped away at my own kool-aid, such that by the time I got ready to book tickets I had convinced myself I was a for-real political action figure (if that's not a contradiction in terms). I was going to Cuba. Fidel would not object. His brother, Cuban leader Raúl Castro wanted me there ... if I could see fit to bring plenty of cash. And the US Government wanted me there.

Fly to Cuba.
   Give a speech.
      Smoke a cigar.

Fly home.
   Give a speech.
      Smoke a cigar.

That was my simple plan.  

Except, flying to Cuba turned out to be not so easy in May of 2015.

[Next post: How to Fly to Havana and NOT Lake Havasu.]