Cuba Libre

IE YOU WANT TO EXPERIENCE CUBA IN ALL ITS AUTHENTIC BRILUANCE, YOU'D BETTER GO SOON OR STARBUCKS WILL GET THERE EIRST. PLAYBOYS ULTIMATE PARTY GUIDE TO THE EORBIDDEN ISLAND

ay the word Cuba to any American man, and ideas rush to his mind: revo­lution, gangsters, cigars, jazz and, perhaps most of all,

gorgeous women. Rummed-up beauties who can do things on a dance floor that make you think they have V8 en­gines in their panties. Another thing Americans think when you men­tion Cuba: forbidden island, the place we're not allowed to go.

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Cuban history offers legendary scenes of debauchery, beauty, violence, political decay and seduction. Take for example the words of Italian American gang­ster Lucky Luciano—a man whose legacy is woven into that of Havana—

wnen he first stared out a window at 'i

the Hotel Nacional de Cuba, blown away ___i

by the city's beauty: "When I got to the room the bellhop opened the curtains on them big win­dows, and I looked out. I could see almost the whole

city. I think it was the palm trees that got me." Or the

words of fellow gangster Joe Stassi when he arrived

in 1928: "Beautiful young whores everywhere,

every street corner, every bar. In one club there were 25 girls. You picked the one ^ you wanted to be in a live sex show."

What other city can claim to have hosted an orgy involving Frank Sinatra that was interrupted by a nun and a bunch of Girl Scouts? Sinatra landed in Cuba on February 11,1947 with a suitcase filled with $2 million

II in cash. The money was for Luci-' ano, who was building his gam­bling empire in Havana. Taking part in the orgy were Sinatra, Luciano, Al Capone's older brother Ralph and "a

^ V planeload of call girls" (according to an > FBI informant). As T. J. English writes in his

f wonderful book Havana Nocturne, "In the

midst of a ribald bacchanalia, somehow a con­tingent of Cuban Girl Scouts escorted by a Catholic nun were allowed to visit Sinatra's suite.... When the Girl

Scouts entered, there were bottles on the floor, lingerie was hanging from lamp shades and the air was filled with the stench of stale Derfume. Sinatra entered the

room in a robe and silk scarf as if nothing were wrong. The ruse was exposed when four naked bodies fell giggling into the front room."

Havana was shaped by the powerful forces of a corrupt government and elite Ameri­can Mafia figures. They had a vision for Havana: a Latin Las Vegas. Meetings in which these plans were hammered out took place at the Nacio-nal during Christmas week in 1946, a scene carefully re­created in Francis Ford Cop­pola's Godfather II. And so

Havana became a party town on par witn Monte <~ario, with open casinos, a never-ending flow of Bacardi rum and celebrities moving back and forth between the air­port and the Nacional, everyone from Marlon Brando, Ava Gardner, Clark Gable, Jack Dempsey, Ed Sullivan,

Graham Greene and Ernest Hemingway. The great thing about Cuba? You could do things on this island that were illegal in most civilized countries, and to use Luciano's

words, "it was only 90 miles from the United States."

In a sense, time stopped in Havana on January 8,1959, the day Fidel Castro—ellider maximo, rebel with a cause-rolled into town to set up a new government. Castro kicked out the gangsters and nationalized all prop­erty. In 1962 JFK decided to squeeze Castro by slam­ming down an economic embargo. With the stroke of a pen, anyone with a United States passport lost visiting privileges. In theory at least.

The truth is, Americans never stopped visiting Cuba. You can fly down today, and when you arrive in the pearl of the Antilles, you'll see Brits, Italians, Frenchmen, Canadians and, yes, Americans. You'll find old-school romance like nowhere else. Ironically, the trade embargo

has kept the forbidden island unblemished and true to its roots. Chevys from the 1950s cruise up and down the streets. Smoking is permitted; in fact, it's damn near mandatory. What you will not see in Cuba: McDonald's.

Here is a caveat: Your goal is to see Cuba now, be­fore the U.S. embargo falls and the island becomes a commercialized, Disney-fied disaster zone, with every corner sporting a Starbucks. Already President Obama has begun to loosen the embargo. If you wish to see

auinentic i_uDa, now is tne time. After all, who makes better Cuban cigars than Cubans? Who makes better Cuban food than Cu­bans? Nobody plays better Cuban jazz than Cubans, nor can anyone make

' better Cuban rum than Cubans. And don't forget, a two-hour drive from

4Havana will take you to beaches as beautiful as any in the Bahamas.

The day begins in your bed in a shabby-chic room at the Nacio-nal, the same hotel where Lucky first looked out onto the city. Un­like in Vegas, the windows here have

no blackout shades. You know when morning comes, marking yet another night on the town survived. You head down to the veranda for a cup of bracing sweet coffee. (Who makes better Cuban coffee than Cubans?) A few laps in the hotel's saltwater pool finishes off the reinvigoration.

It is never too early for a cocktail here, so you stroll to Old Havana (La Habana Vieja), where you find El Flori­dita. One of the world's truly iconic bars, El Floridita spe-

cializes in the (real) daiquiri, a simple concoction that has nothing but rum, ice, sugar and lime. Lunch at El Floridita consists of camarones, pescado y langosta en su salsa preferida (shrimp, fish and lobster with sauce). For dessert you light your first cigar of the day.

In the afternoon you walk through the avant-garde art galleries and studios. Havana, like Berlin and East Beijing, has a vibrant contemporary art scene. An after­noon respite follows: another Cuban coffee at El Pa-

:io, which overlooks the Catedral de San Cris­tobal de la Habana (restored for Pope John Paul M's historic 1998 visit). Everyone is friendly. After the end of the Cold War, you are told, Cuba fell into an eco­nomic catastrophe, losing a report-

i oo perceia ui lib OUK I Me now

>f American money is critical, so

everyone is smiling at you. Hungry?

Many of Cuba's best restaurants are

¦' situated in private homes. Licensed

by the government, they're called

paladares. For tonight, it's La Casa,

where you chase down ceviche and

r' pickled octopus with red wine. Your final decision of the day? Where to catch some live jazz. You decide on La Zorra y El Cuervo, where on any given night

you can near world-class jazz musicians jamming until three a.m. On the dance floor those V8 engines are pumping out rpms. You find yourself dancing with a local beauty. She has that twinkle in her eye. And so you mention that you're an American. You're staying at the Nacional. Which is just two blocks away.

TO GET THERE

rOR MOST AMERICANS, IT'S ILLEGAL TO STEP f < IN CUBA. 1 HAT DOESN'T MEAN YOU SHOULDN'T GO

Yes, you know all about the Cuban embargo. Yet by one estimate, 50,000 Americans traveled to Cuba legally in 2008, and countless more visited illegally. You have two ways to get there: (1) Go legit. Apply for a general or specific license through the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control (treas.gov/offices/enforcement/ofac). If you're a journalist on assignment, an ordained min­ister wishing to do outreach or an artist seeking to do research, there's a good chance the government will grant you a license. Play for a college baseball team? Set up an exhibition game, fill out the paper­work and you're golden. Plan ahead—this takes time.

Thanks to a recent loosening in regulations under the Obama administration, the law now reads, "U.S. per­sons with close relatives in Cuba may currently travel to Cuba once per 12 months for unlimited length of stay." (2) Or you can sneak in. The Cuban economy is desperate for American dollars, so officials make a note of not stamping passports when Americans ar­rive. You can fly in through Cancun or Nassau in the Bahamas. Some travel companies set up packages solely for this purpose (see cubatravelusa.com or usacubatravel.com). Get caught and you're facing a maximum $55,000 in civil penalties and criminal pen­alties of up to $250,000 and 10 years in prison. We know people who go frequently for weeks at a time and have never had any trouble.

THE GREAT THING ABOUT CUBA? YOU

COULD DO THINGS ON THIS ISLAND

THAT WERE ILLEGAL IN MOST CIVIUZED

COUNTRIES, AND YET IT WAS ONLY 90

MILES EROM THE UNITED STATES.