Americans Traveling to Cuba (first time)

Happy new year. Feliz agno nuevo.

It is officially 2019, and today we're filming our first video of the year, and we are so excited.

We're starting the year off right by traveling to our first new country. Gracias.

We are in the back of a taxi on the way to the airport because today we are flying to Cuba.

Yay.

Well, our taxi driver has disappeared. He got out of the car and said, pee, pee. One minute. It's now been five. Is that him? Oh, wow. He went far down there.

Yeah, he did.

He's coming back.

Did you think we were gonna go?

He hasn't even buckled his belt up yet. Vaminos.

No problem.

I don't see it on there, not with our airline.

What terminal are we in?

We're in three. Well, as it turned out, our taxi driver dropped us off at Terminal 3 instead of Terminal 2. I gave him last pesos as we were getting out of the taxi. So now we're walking to Terminal 2.

We'll be all sweaty after our fresh shower.

We have less than two hours, so our flight takes off. We still have to figure out how to buy an arrival car for Cuba. This could get interesting. Or maybe not.

Happy New Year.

Okay, we made it. We're not sweating anymore. We're very calm. Everything's fine. And we already have our Cuban visa. It was super easy. We pay for it at the gate, and the guy even filled it out for me.

$25 a person. So before we head to the lounge, we thought we would take a second to answer what we assume will be the biggest question in this video. And that is, how are you, as Americans, traveling to Cuba? Are you doing it legally? Are you doing it illegally? If you're in Cancun, are you sneaking in? There are a lot of restrictions around Americans traveling to Cuba, but we are doing it legally. When Obama came into office, he made it easier for Americans to go to Cuba. And then Trump came into office and he made it harder for Americans to go to Cuba again. But as it stands today, as long as you fall under one of 12, 12 categories, you can travel to Cuba legally.

So when we were planning our trip, we had two options. We could either go as journalists or in support of the Cuban people.

Most Americans who are going to Cuba will go in support of the Cuban people, which entails keeping a full time schedule of things like enhance contact with the Cuban people, support civil society in Cuba, promote the Cuban people having independence from Cuban authorities, and result in meaningful interaction with individuals in Cuba. All this according to this legal document. So because this category is really broad, that's why most people end up traveling under this category.

However, even though we think this is a great option, we chose to go as journalists because that's what we do all day, every day. So we felt like we had more flexibility to make the best video possible doing that. But we do plan to support the locals every chance we get.

In fact, in some cases it's actually illegal not to support the locals because there's a very long list of places that as Americans, we cannot spend money when we go to Cuba because that money ends up funneling straight into the pocket of the government. This includes things like hotels, tour companies, restaurants.

We're going to follow those rules. And I worked up a huge appetite talking about all this Cuban stuff. So we're going to go to the.

Lounge and I need some coffee because I've been up since 5am this morning trying to make the most most of the Internet because we've heard that that is a luxury in Cuba.

This is all theory at this point, but we're about to see how it plays out in real life because we are boarding the airplane. Cuba.

Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention please. The following is a very important routine.

Information announcement related to your safety.

Please observe the demonstration.

Knowing that we were going to have little to no Internet while we were in Cuba. We have both just been like absolutely crazy people this morning on our phone, on our computer.

But now we're up in the air, the Internet's gone and it just like had this calmness come over me. I think it's going to be really nice being disconnected for the next seven days. Either that or really frustrating. We're very dependent on the Internet when we travel.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Lavana Airport.

For your own safety, please remain setting until the aircraft has come to pretty stuff in front of building and the captain has drawn up. And 55 short minutes later we have touchdown in Cuba.

Country number 84.

Okay, I'm trying to be discreet. We made it through customs. However, a lady just walked up to me out of the hundreds of people standing there like an officer and she questioned me and I think it's because I have this camera.

So I'm being discreet until we leave the airport.

Alright, we made it through customs, everything went pretty smoothly except for Kara being singled out in line and getting asked a bunch of questions. There were literally like a hundred people standing in this room and the lady came right up to Kara.

Yeah. And asked me multiple things, like more than once, like what do you do? Why are you here? Where were you before this? What were you doing there?

But besides that, everything looked pretty smooth. Now we just have to stand in this really long line to get some cash.

After we changed money, we quickly jumped in a taxi to head into Down. Hola. We shared with two French girls and came down to.

I don't know where we are. Hopefully close to where we're staying. One thing that you should know if you're going to change money in Cuba, though, is that there are actually two different currencies. There's like what they call a tourist currency and then there's a local currency. So the tourist currency, the CUC, is pegged at one to one with the US dollar. But if you change US dollar, you'll pay a 10% fee plus the 3% transaction service. Service fee. You basically lose 13% when you change your money. And then you have the local pesos, which I think is like 1 25th of a dollar. So we changed our money to the tourist money and we're going to see if we can get some local pesos later.

I love it here.

This city is so cool.

And this is home. For the next few nights, we are staying in what's known as a casa particular, which basically just means we're staying in a rented room in someone's house. It's like a big thing to do here in Cuba, but for us, it really doesn't feel that different because we just booked it on Airbnb. Like we booked the majority of our accommodations.

So next on the agenda, wandering the.

Streets in the dark, looking for a restaurant.

Our first Cuban meal.

I think we found gym. Not the restaurant that our host told us to go to, but we walked by and it just looked so fun. And they had $1 mojitos. So far, we tonight.

This is the whole restaurant. I think there might be one table upstairs. The road is right here.

I love it.

Cheese.

I thought he said the French style lasagna. I'm dripping it on my pants. But they told me that it's a vegetable lasagna. I'm still not sure who's right. It does look like vegetables.

It's just vegetables with cheese and herbs on top. I don't see any noodles. Maybe I just haven't gotten there yet. This might be a noodle.

My fajitas on the other hand, well, they lived up to everything I'd read about Cuba food. I really don't even know how you get chicken to be this texture. It's like, it was like three days old and they're like, ah, that won't work. Let's just go in the deep fryer. Like, each piece takes me five minutes.

We still have a week to redeem this meal that I'm having right now.

Happy new year.

My bag is too stuffed to lift my handle Quickly. Steady. Okay, I need some coffee.

I got up at 5 this morning to make the most of the Internet.

It's not.

We can see if my head's cut off. It feels like it's really pointing down.

I'm sure everyone is wondering what shoes I got for Christmas this year. I switched from tacos to Tivas.