Black Travel to Cuba on the Rise

Beyoncé and Jay Z caused major chaos two years back with an anniversary vacation down to Cuba. Faultfinders (okay, haters) complained that the pop power couple’s trip was illegal, a violation of the longstanding U.S. embargo against the Caribbean island. Well, that was 2013.

As of January ’15, President Obama widely expanded the categories of authorized travel to the Communist island nation, to the point of allowing organized American tours for educational activities.

Thawing relations between Cuba and the United States have already increased tourist activity 36 percent, and Black Americans beyond the MTV set are starting to do our fair share of indulging.

Up in the Air Life (the “upscale travel company dedicated to social adventures” founded by world traveler Claire Soares) boasts organized international jaunts for African-American vacationers to exotic locales like Mexico, Colombia, Greece, Croatia and Thailand.

This year Soares targeted Cuba, coordinating a recent cultural tour of Havana for almost a dozen wanderlusting vacationers.

Disembarking in Miami, the troupe spoke stateside with EBONY.com about Afro-Cuban entrepreneurialism, superior Cuban healthcare, and the effect of tourism on the struggling Cuban economy.

“Cubans are part of the same [African] diaspora, they were just dropped off before we were,” said Brandie Cobb, a Hampton-grad educator who’d just returned with the group. “They embrace us. It’s like, ‘you’re still our people.’ They’re just happy to see us. We went to the beach one day, and it was just like, ‘hey, you want some rum?’ We didn’t find really good rum until beach day,” she recalls with a laugh.

Cuba’s free socialized healthcare predated Obamacare by nearly a half-century, and their medical system (highlighted in the 2007 documentary, Sicko) in many ways outstrips America’s.

“They could care less about a cellphone, the Internet, the latest fashions, a CD—because they played their own music and it was jamming,” said assistant principal Javon Davis, who’d visited locals up in the Cuban mountains of Las Casas.

Source: Ebony