 It’s easy to sense the palpability of the Cuban dream. A nation that has existed primarily on hope for nearly fifty years shows the world just how powerful hope can be. It’s this, and little else, that moved Cuba dramatically toward the unknown and untested, and has carried its population through innumerable hardships. People fall in love with Cuba and never leave. This Russian gentleman fell in love with a Cubana, more specifically, and stayed for her. She eventually left him for another man, but not before he bought into the dream of a passionate life on a revolutionary island. He may complain about being tricked by the woman and the revolutionary rhetoric, yet he still wears his Cuban military fatigues with pride. |
 La Patria Ante Todo… “The Motherland Before Everything.” The dream of Cuba comes first. This is a lesson taught to the young and old, and repeated throughout life to remind citizens of their reasons for sacrifice: “Sacrifice for our Future;” “Bear hardship with honor;” “We will not back down.” Propaganda appears on billboards across the country. |
 Everywhere you turn in Cuba there are reminders of revolutionary heroes, those who made the ultimate sacrifice for their motherland. More than in any other place, these martyrs are venerated and even deified. This brings the revolution alive. These almost Disney-like characters remind citizens that their sacrifices, no matter how difficult, are less than the “ultimate sacrifice” of martyrdom. This is very effective politically. It’s much easier to romanticize a dead man than to argue with him. This is a wall of heroes and saints. Che, Christ, Fidel, and the Pope are granted the most space, but they share the wall with Santeria figures and Cuban musical legends. |
 There are so many visuals that impart a tourist’s Cuba: cigars, old cars, tropical beaches, and Spanish forts. The cars are fabulous. You arrive in Havana to a sense that you have just stepped back into the 1950s. Classic American automobiles pass by on the street, most looking remarkably fit for their age. The curves of a ’50s-era Chevrolet seem somehow more glamorous than anything built since. |
 Because much of the architecture in Cuba, especially in Old Havana, hasn’t changed since the 1950s either, it is easy to get lost in history. La Floridita, where Hemingway used to get his favorite drinks, still feels like something out of a Bogart movie. Rum and tobacco brought the tourists back then, and still entertain them today, much to the benefit of government coffers. Tourism is the number-one economic engine in contemporary Cuba. This man and his dog are looking over an area in Old Havana, where tourists are drawn to well-preserved bars and restaurants made famous by Hemingway. On the street below, a rum and tobacco shop can be seen on the right. |
 Besides old cars and Spanish architecture, I recognize Cuba mostly by the faces of the Cubans I met. Smiles come easily, but on the street you’re more likely catch the worn expressions of weary eyes and set jaws. There is a clear sense that life isn’t easy here. Americans in Cuba don’t go anywhere unnoticed. In Old Havana, I can’t help feeling like I’m walking through a staged set, that if I just walk around the corner I’ll meet the edge of the stage–and with it, reality. Sometimes this proves true. Stray off the beaten track, and you’ll see fewer polished cars, fewer Cuban flags, and more people just sitting and watching and waiting. I love the street scenes–people getting haircuts, talking with neighbors, sweeping the sidewalk, and hanging laundry to dry on the balcony.  |
 Education is free in Cuba. Younger students attend school in their hometown, and books and uniforms are provided. Children learn the fundamentals of Cuban citizenship along with their math and reading, and are expected to join the youth Communist scouts. Like young Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts of America, they learn songs, lessons in morality, and leadership skills. These children were just coming home from school when I met them. A few years from now, they’ll be sent to mandatory co-ed boarding schools outside of the city. |
 Every month, Cuban families receive rations of food: oil, rice, beans, and eggs. This guarantees a certain amount of food on the table, despite low salaries. Families with children are entitled to milk, additional eggs, and meats. Produce availability is extremely limited, unless grown at home, and some goods, such as potatoes and lobsters, are limited to “dollar stores” and tourist consumption only. In Cuba, the U.S. dollar is a powerful tool. Dollars provide access, not just to material goods and services, but to an entirely different lifestyle. Imported goods, produce, and meats are sold in dollar stores, which accept only U.S. currency. Those without access to dollars rely on their Cuban Peso salary and ration cards. Ration cards don’t fulfill all of a family’s needs, and ration stores are bare and depressing, as shown here. |
 These young women are celebrating their fifteenth birthdays in the Latin American tradition. A combination of “Sweet Sixteen” and a debutante-style celebration, the fifteenth birthday, or quinceanera celebration, is a woman’s most important time next to her wedding day. She is welcomed into adulthood and presented to the world in high style. In Cuba, it’s tradition for a family to save for years in order to give their daughter a proper quinceanera celebration. |
 In every neighborhood, there’s a local Committee for the Defense of the Revolution, or CDR. The CDR members act as a sort of “Big Brother.” They watch over the neighborhood and are expected to report any suspicious behavior to the Communist Party (in particular, any behavior disrespectful of the government or its ideals). The sign on this door reads “The CDRs, against illegal activity, against corruption and crime.” |
 Cuban art and music are celebrated in Cuba by locals and tourists alike. Both genres of expression are rich, passionate, and pervasive. The Cuban dream plays out in both art and music, and it’s easy to get swept up in it all. |
On our recent honeymoon, my wife and I spent seven nights on the island of Providenciales in the Turks and Caicos islands, about 575 miles southeast of Miami, Florida. Anyone who has been married can attest that–by the end of a perfect wedding weekend and the months of sometimes agonizing planning that made it that way–lying on a warm Caribbean beach enjoying the sun and a few strong rum drinks, is in tall order. A trip to Providenciales seemed the perfect way to set aside thoughts of the bustling world behind us. But to avoid becoming completely detached, I was eager to take in some of the local culture, which coincided with my obsession with all things sporty and British. My chosen activity was the game of cricket, and I wanted to join the locals in a rousing match of it. Of course, I knew little of the game, but I felt an afternoon on the cricket pitch would round out my honeymoon experience and complete my transformation from simple American tourist to island legend.
There is a place in Puerto Rico where a panoramic view of Olympus-like mountains, veiled by the shadows of clouds, encircles a town of oft-neglected interest and history. It’s a place where lush greenery grows as far as the eye can see and the golden hands of the sun touch every street corner. This place is called Coamo, just a short drive south of San Juan and northeast of Ponce traveling on route 14. The tranquil valley in which Coamo rests is largely unaffected by the hustle and bustle of the major Puerto Rican tourist centers and appeals to those who prefer “the path less traveled.”Located in the interior of the island, Coamo is a nature lover’s paradise. Driving along meandering country roads will get you so close to the feet of mountains that you can practically stick your hand out of the car window and touch them. Concrete homes painted in pastels of peach, lime, and lavender dot the terraced landscape like rugged steps, each one higher than the next. I was so transfixed by the towering majestic scene before me that a dull cramp settled at the base of my neck from looking up. But I was hypnotized. If you enjoy nature, as I do, consider bringing a neck brace. The tiny sedan in which my companion and I traveled whined like a stubborn pack mule as we coaxed it over the steep hills and dips that snaked before us.
Coamo is an amazing place. The third oldest city in Puerto Rico, it is steeped in history and rich tradition. Founded in 1579 by Cristóbal y Blas de Illescas, the town was originally called San Blas de Illescas. The current name comes from the Taino chief Coamey. At the centerpiece of the Plaza de Mercado is the famous Iglesia de Illescas, a Catholic church initiated by Friar Diego de Salamanca in 1616. It was the first church of its kind to offer religious service to the small community, and today it stands as the cornerstone of the city, with its blinding, pristine façade gleaming in the fierce Puerto Rican sun. The Coamo Museum is just a few yards away from the church. Within its walls are housed interesting facts about the town, the indigenous Taino culture, and of course the Spanish influence with regard to modern Puerto Rican culture.
After all that sightseeing and mingling with the locals, it was time for a little R&R. Coamo has that covered too. For golf fanatics, one must visit the beautifully kept Coamo Springs Golf Club and Resort. The eighteen-hole course is the only one of its kind in southern Puerto Rico. The weather is nearly always perfect and the fairways are from heaven. If golf is not your style, you can take a jaunt to the famous Baños de Coamo. Used by the natives of Coamo for its mythical therapeutic powers, the baths of Coamo are thought to be the “Fountain of Youth” for which Conquistador Juan Ponce de Leon searched so frantically. There are two entrances to the springs. One is for the public and is free; however, it not well maintained and is often crowded by the locals who use it as a meeting place to discuss civic events and politics. The other entrance is through the parador Los Baños de Coamo. The forty-eight-room hotel was once one of Puerto Rico’s most upscale resorts. Current rates range from US$62-$81 per night. The rooms are not luxurious by any stretch of the imagination, but the accommodations are fair considering the price. If you do not wish to stay at the hotel you can still take advantage of their baths for nominal fee.
But this summary describes a different place equally well, a place that is several years further down that path than anywhere on the Pacific coast, and a place where a recent reporting trip brought me into close contact with the two-tier tourism economy: Cuba.
The Soviets had given the Cubans a stunningly good price for its sugar, accepting Cuba’s sugar in exchange for Russian oil. When the Soviet Union collapsed, Cuba found that selling its sugar at the world market price would fetch less than twenty percent as much oil as it had received before.
The move was tinged with irony because the hard currency circulating in Cuba is issued by a government that has been trying for forty-four years to bring about regime change on this Caribbean island, by methods ranging from invasion and economic strangulation to outright assassination.
As an American hailing from a part of the country undergoing similar (if much less drastic) change, witnessing this economic divide gives me pause, and rightly so. Many rural areas on the Pacific coast of Canada and the United States have also seen the disparity among incomes widen in recent years. Old sources of livelihood have dried up, and new forms of income–arising from transfer payments from outside the region and from the service economy–have become more significant.
Although the Pacific Northwest doesn’t face quite so extreme a situation, the parallels are worth noting. Communities bear a social cost when talented entrepreneurs harvest the tourist dollar through t-shirt shops, ice cream stores, and charter fishing, instead of building enterprises that serve local needs or yield higher-wage jobs in manufacturing or value-added processing. What’s more, many of the goods that feed the tourist economy come from outside the area, a factor that reduces the net benefit to the community from the tourist trade.
In most cases, however, these programs pale in comparison with the Cuban methods of “milking†tourists. (The beaches of Oregon, for instance, will never draw sun worshippers in the same numbers as the sands of the Caribbean.) But Cuban innovations in the harvest of the tourist dollar may hold valuable lessons even across different climates and economic systems.
