Travel to Cuba

Moon Handbooks Havana

Format: Paperback
Author: Christopher P. Baker
ReleaseDate: July, 2003
Publisher: Avalon Travel Publishing
Rating:

All you need for Havana
Baker is a very good writer who's done extensive research, and the book is pleasurable to read. I also just got back from Cuba, and I couldn't disagree with Cecil Fox's January 17 review more. He makes his love for the place palpable without sparing the reader the frustration a visitor/observer often feels. Other travelers staying where I did ended up borrowing this guidebook for its richness of detail and background that theirs (Lonely Planet) lacked. I liked it so much I'm buying another- I had to leave my copy on the plane as we were without licenses, and afraid of tipping-off US immigration.
That said, I wish it were updated a bit. The million bicycles Baker writes about aren't there en masse anymore, and Dulce Maria's was fun but not the throbbing delirium he paints. All in all though, I'll buy it again.

A travel book to discourage travel.
While there are certainly facts and history aplenty, the author, who must work for a certain company, makes Havana as repugnant as possible. Having just returned from Havana I find this book to be the most disingenuous exercise I can remember. The blockade, engineered by fanatics who fled Havana for Miami to avoid prosecution or persecution these forty years ago continues without any sane reason. There is a refreshing intellectual life. Civil liberties are no more endangered in Havana than in Alabama or the Bronx. US citizens are now required by the Bush administration to have exit visas from the US issued by the Treasury Department. A nurse told me that Cuba is a third world country. I told her that a Third World country wouldn't have universal health care, no illiteracy, no threat of AIDS, no perinatal mortality, and a system of preventative medicine to be envied. No, I told her, it is I who live in a third world country.
In his litany of deficiencies the author fails to compare anything. Streets are bad. Compared to Baltimore? Slums. Compared to Newark? Poor people. Compared to Mississippi?
You should buy this book (if you are going to Havana) for its wealth of history and useful facts. Do not allow the authors grumpy interpretations influence how you feel about Havana or the Cuban people.

Travel with Chris
Not only does it have great information for the essential activities like eating and sleeping, but it has an incredible amount of information about the country. I spent a month in Cuba guided by this book. If you find yourself without a book to read while traveling, Chris' guide book is great for educational reading material - packed with historical and cultural reading. At first I scoffed at his tendency to flowery writing - "with water as warm as bedtime milk" but after growing accostomed to his style we began to think of Chris as our travel buddy and the other travel books brought by my travel partners were soon buried deep in backpacks - Chris' book was the only one we needed.

Related products:
click image or link for details on these Cuba travel books.

	Streetwise Cuba (Streetwise)
	Frommer's Cuba (Frommer's Complete)
	International Travel Maps, Havana, Cuba, Scale 1:10 000: Indexed = Mapas Internacionales de Viaje, La Habana, Cuba, Escala 1:10 000 (Travel Reference Map)
	The Rough Guide to Cuba 3 (Rough Guide Travel Guides)