Читать книгу 4 Americans in Cuba - Larry Stein - Страница 3

For Americans, Cuba has been the forbidden fruit—a skin of Detroit sheet metal covering a center of tasty rum, swirling cigar smoke and sandy beaches.

Until January of 2016, when the people to people exception opened independent travel to Americans, there was no role for this guidebook. Legal travel to Cuba was through planned tours ranging from 7 to 13 nights. Those tours, at QE II stateroom prices, enveloped travelers in an all-inclusive bubble. Backpackers defying the embargo, were travelers on a shoestring tightly holding Lonely Planet, while scrolling through backpacker social media.

My intended reader is neither unwashed (great or otherwise) nor anointed. Cost is an object, but so is comfort. She recognizes the danger of a luxury cocoon as well as the tedium of a shared bathroom.

Money is only one resource to marshal. Equally important are time and energy. Although I welcome youthful backpackers, I don’t assume my readers have the boundless energy of the young. I don’t. Travel should be a stroll, not a marathon.

Similarly, time should be savored, not wasted in endless lines, that can be part of life in Cuba. I have a few tips that will save you hours. I caught one error in Lonely Planet that may save you days.

This book has nearly two hundred pictures. Is a picture worth a thousand words? I have seen horrible pictures that were worth only a few expletives. But I’m advising you where to eat, sleep and sightsee. Pictures provide you with a tool to make your own decisions, piercing the hyperbole of the intrepid travel writer. I took most of the pictures. Those taken by Jan Sanders will be followed by a “JS”, those by Jacqueline Heskett a ”JH”, and those by my wife an “RS”.

I do have the big picture. Pictures are big. A picture contains more data than a thousand words. Be patient. Downloading will take a little extra time.

To fully enjoy this book, please read it with a computer, tablet, or color e-reader. Otherwise, the pictures will be in fifty shades of grey.