Cuba Questions
The feeling is always the same, and it usually hits me at the same time. The plane leaves the dark greens and browns of the Florida Everglades, es over the azure Florida Straits and then, on the horizon, a small brown strip appears—you know you’re headed back to Cuba.
The plane often zigzags across the straits—instructions I’ve been told from Cuban Air Traffic Control—and then, it crosses over the coastline, usually with the buildings of Havana out the right side of the airplane.
The feeling? It is a mélange of excitement, uncertainty, a little buzz in my gut. What causes it? Maybe it is knowing that things won’t be as they seem, or for that matter, for what they really are. But the familiar sensation means I am back in Cuba.
What do I expect on every visit? First of all, I look for that signature cigar, one that will mark my visit and provide the experience for all Cigar Aficionado readers to appreciate. Will there be any new releases from Habanos? Will the same people still be running it. Then, there are the questions about what new restaurants and clubs have opened up. And, then, finally, there’s the realization that I still have so much to learn about this place, the people here, and that I will never have enough time on this trip to accomplish everything I want to do.
I learned as a young journalist that feeling never goes away. A veteran foreign correspondent, an award winner for a major U.S. newspaper, met me for breakfast one morning on his first day in Mexico. He was almost in a state of high anxiety, the result he said, of “Not knowing what the hell I’m going to write, what I’m going to find, what I’m even going to do.” He peppered me, a resident correspondent, with questions about everything from the local gossip about the government to the weather.
A few weeks later I saw his dispatches—a wonderful kaleidoscope of snapshots of what was happening in Mexico. And I thought that part of what made his stories so wonderful was driven by his anxiety about getting under the surface, of finding out the real story, of relaying the reality of where he was and what he was doing.
So stay tuned. The world of Havana is in front of me again, for four days this time, during the Festival de Habanos, the annual cigar festival. There will be cigars to write about. Great meals with friends. Fancy receptions and events held as part of the festival. Maybe with a bit of luck, Dave Savona and I can give you a little flavor and a little bit of that feeling we get every time we land in Cuba.
