Cuba & Costa Rica Blog
About this blog
Written by Cuba and Costa Rica expert Christopher P. Baker, this blog will update readers on life in these two diverse and exciting countries.
Recent Posts
- Last blog post on Costa Rica and Cuba
- First-ever group motorcycle tours of Cuba successful
- Cuba’s Mariel port readying for Panama Canal expansion
- Musings on wildlife encounters on Costa Rica’s Osa Peninsula
- Cuba’s Steam Trains puffing their last gasp
- My top five thrilling activities in Costa Rica
- Cuba’s fun February festivals include Harleys, Books, Cigars
- Five top volcano viewing experiences in Costa Rica
- New road along Costa Rica / Nicaraguan border mired
- Cuba’s Hotel Campoamor at Cojímar to be restored?
- Cuban revolutionary Celia Sánchez honored in new book
- Christmas challenge for Costa Rica’s sexually abused girls
- Costa Rica opens Chinatown in downtown San José
- David Soul films Hemingway’s car restoration in Cuba
- National Geographic Expeditions receives license for Cuba tours
Christopher Baker to lead motorcycle tours in Cuba
It’s been a dream of mine to lead group motorcycle tours of Cuba ever since I published my travel literary memoir, Mi Moto Fidel: Motorcycling Through Castro's Cuba.
Well, I’m thrilled to report that that dream will now become a reality.
Two weeks ago, the Treasure Department Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) granted a “people-to-people” (P2P) license to MotoDiscovery, permitting the Texas-based company to offer “educational exchange programs” in Cuba.
MotoDiscovery is the only motorcycle touring company to have been granted a license from the U.S. Department of Treasury to legally offer motorcycle travel to Cuba for U.S. citizens. more >>
Breeding centers are saving Costa Rica’s endangered macaws
The majestic macaw—a member of the parrot family—is truly an emperor among birds, and I thrill to each and every sighting while in Costa Rica.
This tiny Central American nation has two of the New World’s 18 species of macaws: the Scarlet macaw (Ara macao, but called the lora in Costa Rica), found principally in on the Pacific lowlands; and the Great green macaw (Ara ambiguous), or Buffon's macaw, found within Costa Rica only in the Caribbean and northern lowlands. more >>
Four places to check out santería in Cuba
With the Pope's visit to Cuba just days away, all thoughts in Cuba are on religion.
However, for me the most fascinating aspect of religion in Cuba is santería, rather than Catholicism, although the two are intertwined.
Santería, or saint worship, has been deeply entrenched in Cuban culture for 300 years. The cult is a fusion of Catholicism with the Lucumí religion of the African Yoruba tribes of modern-day Nigeria and Benin.
Since slave masters had banned African religious practice, the slaves cloaked their gods in Catholic garb and continued to pray to them in disguise. Thus, in santería, Catholic figures are avatars of the Yoruban orishas (divine beings, or guardian spirits, of African animism). more >>
Using cellphones in Cuba is frustrating and costly
One of the first observations that visitors to Cuba have is that unlike almost every other country in the world that they’ve visited, Cuba has relatively few cellphone users.
In June 2010, the nation had 1,098,000 cellphone users according to Cuba’s National Statistics Office—up from 330,000 in 2008, when President Raúl Castro lifted restrictions on who can own cellphones. In fact, Cuba trails even impoverished Haiti in the number of cellphone users, according to the U.N. International Telecommunications Union.
Cuba also has about one million fixed telephone lines. Thus, counting cellphones, Cuba (with 11.2 million inhabitants) has a telephone density of slightly below 20 percent—the lowest in Latin America. more >>
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