Cuba Under Sail March 29 - April 14, 2017 Varadero/Matanzas Havana Cayo Guillermo Viñales Cienfuegos Casilda/Trinidad Playa Larga Antilla/ Cayo Saetia Gibara CUBA CARIBBEAN SEA Santiago de Cuba Wednesday & Thursday, March 29 & 30, 2017 Depart Home / Miami / Havana, Cuba Hot sun moderated by soft breeze greeted us in Miami, a preview for conditions on the two-week voyage awaiting us. Many of us were already acquainted from previous Zegrahm trips, and Expedition Leader Nadia Eckhardt soon began introductions and a briefing. The next morning, our flight path followed the fragile low-lying chain of the Florida Keys before making the 90-mile crossing to land in Havana. Staff beckoned us to our buses, where local guides Abel Valdes and David Camps greeted us warmly. Once underway, they showed themselves to be both personable and knowledgeable, as well as forthcoming about their own histories and opinions, and the realities, dilemmas, and challenges that face Cuba. We stopped for a photo-op at the Plaza de la Revolucion, once the open- air gathering place for tens of thousands of Fidel Castro’s supporters held captivated by his masterful oratory. But our group, the majority of whom were Americans “of a certain age,” were spellbound instead by a gleaming array of 1950’s Detroit cars lined up adjacent to our parked buses. In Old Havana, Sloppy Joe’s supplied us with the first of many “welcome mojitos” and hearty lunches, before we crossed the street to a fleet of gorgeous convertibles drawn up to the curb ready to whisk us on a tour. We passed through crowded urban areas to quieter residential streets, and across a picturesque bridge over the Almendares River to enter the lush vegetation of Havana’s hilltop El Bosque preserve. A brief rest stop saw our cars clustered together like a flock of exotic birds before we “flew” onward down the hill, through a tunnel, and, with the open sea on our left, along the Malecon to end at the landmark Hotel Nacional, still imposing in old age. Inside, low-key signs pointed to a “Museum of the Missile Crisis” down the stairs at one end of the soaring Moorish-style lobby. An access door leads literally underground through low-ceilinged tunnels and storage rooms which were hastily built into the promontory on which the hotel sits during the lead-up to the November, 1962, Cuban Missile Crisis. Our drivers then delivered us to the much newer Melia Cohiba. After checking in, we headed for dinner at La Habanera, a paladar, or private restaurant, for an al fresco dinner with live (and lively) music. Friday, March 31 Havana Fortified by the Melia Cohiba’s abundant breakfast buffet, we left while the morning was still fresh for a walkabout in Old Havana. Our first stop was the inspirational Guarderia Padre Usera, a day- care center run by a team of four Catholic nuns and an equal number of lay teachers who serve a group of local children, aged 3-6, all of them poor and all from troubled families. Other morning sights included Havana’s Cathedral, the handsome Plaza de San Francisco, ladies in colonial-era dress posing for pictures—or giving lip-smacking kisses—for CUCs, and a madcap street performer whose dachshund was trained to snarl alarmingly when asked its opinion of US President Trump. A permanent exhibit of an enormous scale model sponsored by the Office of the Historian of the City of Havana, the engine which drives and oversees restoration, helped us orient ourselves to the maze of streets through which we’d been wandering. The entire light-filled second floor of the charmingly old-fashioned Medio Oriente Café Restaurant was ours for a leisurely and convivial lunch before we were once more on our way, this time to the Museo de Arte Contemporaneo. Afterwards, some went on to the colossal Colon Cemetery, literally a “City of the Dead” with its own street names. Others returned to the hotel to relax before dinner at La Moraleja, a large paladar. That evening some of us even managed to stay up to attend the Melia’s “Buena Vista Social Club” show, which featured some of Cuba’s highly- trained professional musicians and dancers. Saturday, April 1 Havana / Viñales With all of us signed up for a day-long bus trip, we wasted no time and hit the road. Throughout the drive, our guides took the mic to inform us and answer questions on matters ranging from cigar culture and the educational system, to religion and agricultural policy. We, meanwhile, could see the city give way to the more sparsely-populated countryside. The Viñales area is famed for its rare karst geological formations, limestone outcrops known in Cuba as mogotes. We had a good look at the scenery from a spectacular overlook before one bus went to a family- owned tobacco farm. We gathered inside the intricately- constructed drying shed, surrounded by rack after rack of sweet-smelling leaves, as the fourth-generation tobacco farmer described the process of cultivating and curing tobacco. He ended with a deft cigar-rolling demo before taking us to see a hand-turned antique sugar-cane press and to taste guarapo, fresh cane juice, mixed with lime. The second bus went to an artist’s gallery/studio to meet and talk with Ramon Vazquez, an internationally- known painter. A native of Viñales who until recently was represented by Galeria Cernuda in Coral Gables, Vazquez has chosen to return home to work unaffiliated with any gallery. We all came together for lunch at the Finca Agroecologica, a state enterprise with a hilltop restaurant surrounded by its own productive terraced vegetable beds. A young and bustling staff served us a delicious family-style feast featuring many fresh, local ingredients. Afterwards Abel reported that, incredibly, the Finca served 300 people the day we were there—no wonder it was a bit hectic! With full stomachs, our buses switched destinations so every- one had visits to both the tobacco farm and the gallery. Sunday, April 2 Havana / Embark Le Ponant Enchanting live chamber music accompanied breakfast at the Melia but we weren’t lingering: we soon set off for a late afternoon embarkation from Havana’s famously sheltered Inner Harbor on Le Ponant, our elegant sailing ship. But first, we visited the Antonio Nunez Jimenez Foundation, a research institute located in what was once the home of the distinguished Cuban anthropologist by that name. The attractive building, opened on a Sunday for us alone, is not a tourist destination; it houses Nunez Jimenez’s personal library and papers, as well as his collection of fine art and artifacts collected on research trips to the Andes and by canoe around the Greater Antilles. Our lunch was at a paladar with an outdoorsy feel created by its fountain, waterfalls, koi-filled ponds, and many indoor tropical plants. After lunch, we visited the Museum of the Revolution, located in what was once Fulgencio Batista’s Presidential Palace. Almost before we knew it we were met at the bottom of a gangway by the affable Captain Paul Boucher. All eyes along the shore were upon us as we, waving and snapping pictures, as we sailed past El Morro and headed east towards Varadero. Monday, April 3 Varadero / Matanzas We were up early to check out snorkel gear and get ready to depart on tour, either to Rio Canimar and inland for a city tour of Matanzas, or on a full-day tour with snorkeling or beachcombing time before lunch at La Arboleda. Our lone diver, meanwhile, enjoyed an exceptional morning’s dive, both in terms of the underwater sights and the professionalism of the upscale Marina Gaviota’s dive operation. By 5 pm we were all back together in the lounge for Richard’s Eight Keys to Understanding the Cuban Revolution, in which he provided background essential to trying to understand what we were seeing throughout the trip. Sea conditions blessed the captain’s welcome dinner as we gathered to toast the days before us and, as always with such a group of veteran travelers, to talk of trips taken and trips to come. Tuesday, April 4 Cayo Guillermo The morning sun sparkled on the sea as we ate breakfast on deck before heading out for the day’s excursions. Snorkelers were in the majority, looking forward to immersion in saltwater and the discovery of sea creatures. The beachgoers quickly dispersed, to walk or run along the sand at the water’s edge or to stretch out on lounge chairs to sun, read, or people-watch. Playa Pilar is a popular destination for tourists and even some locals, with access via a long causeway which connects Cayo Guillermo to Cayo Coco and the towns of Moron and Ciego de Avila. The rest of us crossed the beach to a wooden boardwalk for a short bus ride; across from our first stop, there was a spectacular display of flamingoes in the shallows. The large birds, whether bent over to feed, standing in delicate balance, or with wings spread wide, were the deep-rose color that makes them beautiful even as they also are weirdly, wonderfully gawky. Our first recap began with Jack Grove’s pictures of swarming blue tangs, guests engaging with stone crabs, and posing with schooling grunts and sergeant majors. Rich Pagen then shared his images of soft corals moving in the surge, bearded goatfish, a big- eyed squirrelfish, and a hard-shelled chiton in the intertidal zone. Richard finished up with a useful chronology of US-Cuba relations in the 1960s.