Going Behind What's Left of the Iron Curtain

Going Behind What's Left of the Iron Curtain

If you are a US citizen visiting Cuba, it's initially hard to be sure you are welcome or not. As you land at Havana's Jose Martí airport, your plane taxis past a modern airport building bristling with jetways and populated with planes from all over the world, British Airways, Lufthansa, Quantas, and many others. But you keep on taxiing until you come to a low building that looks like something out of the 1950's. No jetways, no Varig from Brazil. If there is another plane around it is another little charter flight from the US like Sky King Airlines.

I remember an afternoon kid's radio program called Sky King in the 1940's. It wasn't very good, and the charter airline with the same name is nothing to write home about, either. Well, back to the airport--it's a ghost of the past, and if you ask a regular traveler, he'll tell you only the US flights use it. The airport terminal seems to be a vestige of the pissing contest the two countries have carried on for 50 years. By now you don't expect a jetway, and you think you'll be lucky if they roll up a set of stairs to help get out of the plane.

Once inside you're in a big room with a line of kiosks across the back side of it. Attendants there keep you standing behind a red line on the floor until you are motioned to one of the agents-in-a-box. This box is different from those at home in that the agent's desk is above your line of sight. You can't see what he's doing as he inspects your passport and customs card. You may get some questions here, especially if you are traveling with some medicines, as I always am. There's no smile, no "welcome to Cuba," just a chilly stare, and finally a bunch of rubber stamping noises, and your papers are handed back. You've been standing in a narrow passage between two kiosks, and you guess that you must leave it through the door you didn't use to enter. You think at least he spoke English.

You emerge into a large baggage room and place your handbags on the conveyor of an x-ray machine. You might ask, "Why do they x-ray arriving passenger's things?" Well, it's their country, and if that's what they want, you have to comply. If you're carrying a bag full of vet meds and supplies, the kiosk guy has probably fingered you for another interview with a Customs agent. It's happened to me 3 out of 5 times. They invite you over to a small circular stand up table and begin a fresh set of questions. This agent is probably female, pleasant, and has a nice smile. The questions are the same as those on your customs form, and after a while, she decides you're not a terrorist, and you can go look for your checked luggage. Of course it isn't up yet because every Cuban national on your flight has spent a fortune on purchases in the US and then checked them as luggage. There are flat screen TV's in huge cardboard cartons, microwaves, computer towers, and almost everything else easy to get in the US and hard to get in Cuba. Most of the stuff comes in a cocoon of blue plastic film, and it takes the baggage crew the better part of an hour to disgorge the plane's checked luggage.

I'm lucky to have made friends with the Havantur agent lady. She recognizes me every time I show up. She assures me and my two traveling companions that our stuff will show up on the carousel eventually. And it does. Another line has formed as an agent checks every traveler's bag tag with his luggage receipt. My Havantur friend walks us around that line, and we emerge from the old building into the rest of Cuba. This is the first opportunity we've had to see the crowds waiting to meet the travelers, and there in the middle of the crowd is Nora and our driver. We leave Cuba's version of the TSA, and our adventure begins.

Les Inglis