Ron and Kathy's Mid Life Adventures: Cuba Beckons

We're looking forward to riding in cars like these!

“Timeworn but magnificent, dilapidated but dignified, fun yet maddeningly frustrating—Cuba is a country of indefinable magic.”—Brendan Sainsbury, Lonely Planet Writer.

We leave for Cuba on Wednesday. This will be our second try. The first one in November 2016 was aborted when I had surgery for a twisted bowel followed by 12 days of hospitalization just a week before a bicycle tour there. This time, despite an emergency root canal four days ago and regulatory issues, it looks like we’ll make it.

We purchased our airline tickets last June, just one week before the Trump Administration posted new rules that basically shut down cruises and most travel by Americans. Although we’re grandfathered in, we are playing it safe by traveling independently under the “support of the Cuban people” exception.

We'll mostly be on the western half of the island

What does that mean? We cannot stay in hotels or patronize businesses or that are owned by the Cuban government or members of the military. Thus, we’ll be staying at mom-and-pop B&Bs and patronizing local businesses. No problem, that’s how we roll. We also cannot lie around on beaches for two weeks because we’re expected to interact with locals and document full days of doing so. We’re fine with that because we aren’t beach people and this gives an opportunity to practice our bad Spanish.

We engaged a local firm—Cuba Travel Network—to keep us in compliance with our accommodations and activities, such as architectural and historical walking tours, visiting farms, bicycling, going to national parks, museums, artist colonies, etc.

They have also advised us to bring our own toilet paper, soap, shampoo, and water purification tablets, as there is a scarcity of these things in some of the areas we’re visiting. We're bringing only Canadian dollars and Euros. ATMs won't work for US credit card companies. Don’t expect updates to this blog until after the 27^th, as connectivity and bandwidth are a big problem in many areas. If I get a secure connection and good bandwidth, I’ll try to make a couple of Facebook and Instagram posts (@kelemenron), with a copy to our retirement adventures blog on Tumblr.

We wish you a good—and relatively nonfattening—holiday season. We’ll be celebrating our Christmas in Havana.

"What We Can, While We Can!"

Ellie, our seasonal doorman
getting ready
for Thanksgiving

Ellie getting ready for Christmas

An early Christmas dinner of fondue with Kathy's
almost 95-year old mother, Doris.

Meanwhile, here are a few photos from our few days in Denver for Thanksgiving. Despite the 18 inches of snow, the trip exceeded our expectations. My late mom and dad would be very proud of how the five of us sibs get along and occasionally try to get together. We stayed in the Crawford Hotel, which is in the former railroad administrative offices of Denver’s 1914 Union Station. Remodeled and rescued from demolition in 2014, it was magnificent. We loved hanging out in the lobby, billed as “Denver’s Living Room.”