Yes, I really was in Cuba
No, I was not there illegally!
Despite what the US government, the media, and other interest groups might have you believe, travel to Cuba by US citizens is not illegal and not uncommon. Of the 1.7 million tourists who travelled to Cuba in 2002, about 170,000 were US citizens, and most of these people travelled to Cuba without violating any US laws. Specifially, travel to Cuba by itself is not illegal, only the spending of money in Cuba. And this technicality can be fixed with a license from the Treasury department, which can be issued for a few different reasons, including humanitarian work. The St. Augustine-Baracoa Friendship Association has a license issued by the Cuban Assets Control Regulations Division of the Department of the Treasury. This license is issued so that the Association can deliver humanitarian aid to its projects in Baracoa.
I flew to Holguin, Cuba, from Miami. It was a charter flight onboard a Continental jet, although many of the other major airlines have regular service to Cuba. During the few hours I spent in Miam airport coming and going I saw maybe a half-dozen flights to and from Cuban cities. So Cuban travel is a lot more common that you might think.
That said, you have to really want to go to Cuba if you are travelling there. The paperwork from the US side is very time consuming, and the current administration is making it more and more difficult to obtain licenses. Once in Cuba, the authorities are naturally suspicious of our activities and put us through the security wringer going into and out of the country. Intellectual property especially is fascinating to Cuban authorities. Travelling into Cuba Maria had to argue a long time to be allowed to bring several Spanish language books into the country. Upon exiting Cuba, the security people at the airport read through personal notes in some of our bags, confiscated letters that two members of our group were carrying, and generally left a bad taste with all of us. It was the people of Cuba who made the trip worth it, not the US government and not the Cuban government.
My authorization letter from the Friendship Association, allowing me to travel on their travel license to Cuba. This letter allowed me to travel to Cuba for the purpose of assisting with the Association's Humanitarian missions. It also permitted me to spend up to $164 per day in expenses (about 10 times what I actually spent) and to bring back up to $100 of Cuban goods for personal use only. To spend any more money or make additional purchases would have put me in violation of the "Trading with the Enemy" act(!). If you would like to view all of the restrictions of the license, I have posted TIF's of all the relavant docs here:
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