Mi Cuba Linda

My mother and sister left for Cuba today. They will be in the country for two weeks visiting family and friends. This may sound like a vacation, and in many other countries it probably  would be. The process of getting to Cuba is lengthy, complicated and expensive. I will attempt to simplify the steps in the following paragraphs in case any of you should ever decide to venture to my homeland. If this sounds boring, don’t worry, there are pictures and tables for those who find words too … wordy.

The first step in the process is contacting Cuba to get a passport. Every Cuban-American has to get a Cuban passport to be able to return to their country. A US passport will not get you in. The passport costs $450 dollars a piece plus a $200 “updating fee,” as compared to $12-$20 for an American passport. In the past you also had to ask for a visa. Luckily the passport now includes a visa (in the form of a stamp on your passport). This is the first way the Cuban government demands as much of your money as they can.

The next step is to talk to one of the agencies has flights to Cuba. There around 15-20 of these agencies in South Florida. They are all charter systems. This means they are not one of the standard airlines and the details change quite frequently. To acquire a ticket for one of these flights you do not simply visit expedia to find the lowest rate. There are some websites like http://www.ctscharters.com/ but to really find anything out you must visit the agencies independently and get a quote. They will give you a price for the airline ticket and details on how much you will be charged for every pound of luggage (typically $2 per pound, sending packages by mail costs $9-$15 per pound).

Figuring out what to take is probably the most complicated part of the trip. Most Cuban-Americans have family on the island and thus the true purpose of the trip is to take them whatever they need. The calls to the country cost around $1.30 a minute so you can imagine the price racks up as you find out what uncle Esteban in Matanzas needs. There is a limit for the amount you can carry so packing is amusingly complicated. The limit on the number of bags and the number of pounds is really only known by the Cuban airport. They do not inform the agencies and thus the agencies cannot inform their clients. The easiest way to get up to date information is to ask people who have visited recently. There have been many occasions where people will travel with 3 bags only to find out that they must hand one of them over to the government. You may also find yourself there with two bags only to realize you could have brought your family 60-70 more pounds of their favorite beans. Kidding, they need clothes and other stuff too.  You did read correctly though. Five of the six bags my mom and sister took with them weighed over 60lbs. That means that between the two of them they carried around 400lbs of essentials. You might be thinking … Eddie, I know you… you are kind of ridiculous and maybe your family is just as crazy as you are. First of all, please don’t say those things about my family; it isn’t nice and secondly look at the pictures on the left.  Last little bits about luggage. If you pass the current 67lbs limit you are charged $15 a pound. You may have thought that Fanny Packs were out of style but if you sit in the Miami International Airport long enough you would probably think they are the single coolest clothing item available. When travelling to Cuba you use every single item available to carry extra goods. It is not uncommon to find people wearing 4-5 layers of clothes as well as adorning giant hats with outrageous jewelry. It really is all about how much you can pack in as little space as possible. Even the bags are designed with no plastic and no wheels to save on weight.

 

Once you have packed everything and have made your way to the airport you will find that the journey is far from over. At the airport you must have your bags wrapped in plastic wrap to keep the friendly officials from helping themselves to your belongings. This of course only works some of the time. In the Cuban airport you will be asked to pay a customs fee and then you will be suspiciously approached by officials. Should you choose to “tip” them $50-100 per bag you will find your time at the airport is very pleasant. They will escort you to an air conditioned room where you will receive drinks and wait patiently as everything is readied for you. Should you choose to ignore these pleasant folk you will find yourself watching your bags “searched” through. Ultimately they will find something wrong with what you’ve brought and the will either fine you $50-100 per bag or you will leave that much in items. Another little regulation is that if you take anything with substantial value such as; electronic equipment, movies, and music; you will find yourself paying the Cuban government the retail value. So if I bought a camera for my family I would pay $150 here to purchase it and $150 there to purchase it? Don’t forget your receipts… or they are likely to make that $50 phone mysteriously cost $300. After this it is all a matter of getting to your family’s house and distributing your goods. In all four of trips we have made we left even the bags we bought for the trip. There is a very real need.

I detailed the costs on average per person below. the numbers are from the quotes we’ve gotten from our four trips. They are pretty subjective and change from time to time. Quite often they are more expensive than below. I tried to be conservative in the calculations. They also change if you have connections. God blessed us by letting us meet the president of the airline on one of our research trips. She waived a lot of the luggage costs for us and even moved us up in the checkout line.

It would be easy to make a trip from Miami to Orlando for about $250. Even if you bought things for the trip and had a lot of luggage it would not get over $500. Flying to Cuba is usually at least $2500 a person. There really isn’t a way around it. Even if we dropped the embargo I don’t think things would really change. The Cuban government is set on stealing as much money from visitors as possible.

The abuse of the government is definitely heaviest on the people still living there. I know there are places worse off in the world. This is just hard because it is my home and my people. I want to change it.

 

Per Person Table of Costs

	Timeline	Price	Running total
Acquire a Cuban Passport	2-3 Months	$450+$200	$650
Find an Airline	2-3 Weeks of Research and Negotiations	Direct Flight $570 Non-Direct $800	$1220
Figure out the Regulations	1 Week of Research	$20-30 Worth of gas driving between airport, agencies and people’s homes.	$1240
Bags	5 Days calling family and gathering the goods.	Call from Cuba to the US. $7 a minute  Call from the US to Cuba. $1.10-$1.60 a minute.  $100-$600 In items.	Assuming you talk for about an hour total at $1.20 a minute. $1820
Miami Airport		$20 per Bag to the Airline. $380 for the weight of the bags. $20 for plastic wrapping.	$2320 Using 3 bags.
Cuban Airport		Bribes =  50-100 dollars per bag DVDs = $15 a piece Any electronic equipment; price of the system Customs fee: 25-50	$2550 Assuming you get lucky and only have to pay $50 a bag.
Total	3 – 5 months		$2550