“As I make my slow pilgrimage through the world, a certain sense of beautiful mystery seems to gather and grow” - A. C. Benson
Can I travel to Cuba? Yes you can, and yes you should. The Biden administration has eased things and just approved flights to airports beyond just Havana.
For over 60 years the Caribbean island has been blunted from the world, now the American embargo, locally called ‘el bloqueo’, is steadily lifting and with that comes new blood, direct flights and a glimpse of what some might hail as ‘the good life.’ This dolce vita is most evident in the country’s walkers – parading on the esplanades, taking to the streets amongst the 1950s classic cars, meandering the coastal shores, caressing slowly all over the gravel roads and shrubby paths of the countryside.
Cuba today, still a country of forever-stretching pale beaches and fat cigars paired with rum on every street corner, has evolved without hurry. The locals, albeit partially enforced by socialism (not the misunderstood kind, I am talking to you America) and impaled by severe poverty, collectively celebrate the art of living, in every moment of every day.
As the sun comes across the ocean, ‘Cubao’ (or ‘where fertile land is abundant’) wakes with a rhythm unfettered by giant polluting mass industry, recognizable commercial brands or Internet doused technology. The morning coffee is roasted and ground at home from beans found at a nearby plantation, the added sweet milk is fresh from a neighbor’s cow, iPhones are mostly unavailable, social media of course unchecked and a meditation is instituted from the sensual circadian heat and lazy trees overhead. Of course the city’s tempo is more vivace, but there is something about the Cuban essence that keeps mindfulness extant.