Adventure Beat

For the first time in many years, travel to Cuba suddenly seems like a possibility in the future of ordinary Americans. As well it should be, in our honest opinion — other nationalities have had free access to travel in Cuba for years, and Americans can visit other dictatorships without penalty. Adventure Beat editor Christian Kallen went to Cuba in 2002 on a then-legal exchange program; he compiles this list of the eight best things that tomorrow's traveler might expect to find while visiting our Caribbean neighbor.

1) La Habana Vieja

The crown of Cuba's attractions is Old Havana, La Habana Vieja, one of the first cities founded in the New World that is still at the same location. The compact old city center expresses the soul of Cuba, in its people as well as its buildings.

UNESCO added La Habana Vieja to the World Heritage list back in 1982 for its architecture and historic value. Today its neighborhoods pulse with good music, good food, and good times — street crime is virtually unheard of in Castro's Cuba, one of the benefits of dictatorship (if not the only one). All about Havana on Wikipedia.

2) El Malecón

It may seem strange to point to a pedestrian walk as a wonder, but the Malecón, the 4-mile walkway fronting Havana Bay, is exactly that for many residents and visitors to Havana. Here all Havana comes, at some time or another, to be alone with their thoughts, or to enjoy the sun setting over Morro Castle across the bay, or simply to take a walk and breathe the sea air (sometimes carried by dramatically strong winds and high tides). Along its length you travel from Habana Vieja to new Havana, passing residents fishing for their supper, children playing in the waves, and lovers hooking up for the night or for life. Read what a Cuba junky has to say about El Malecón. 

3) Santiago de Cuba

On the other end of the island, Cuba's second-largest city rivals Havana in art, history and even politics — during the 1950s it was the first to embrace Castro's rebels, and earned the sobriquet "cradle of the revolution" as a result — Castro declared victory from a balcony in Santiago on New Year's Day, 1959. Its eastern location is more Caribbean-facing, and its architecture, cuisine and ethnic mix reflects this character. It, too, has earned World Heritage Site recognition for San Pedro de la Roca Castle, which overlooks the Bahia de Santiago de Cuba and was cited by UNESCO for its "Spanish-American military architecture, based on Italian and Renaissance design principles."  More about Santiago de Cuba.

4) Cienfuegos

Another World Heritage site (Cuba has eight), this colonial town dates from 1819. Cienfuegos was built on three crops closely identified with Cuba: sugar cane, coffee, and tobacco. Its first architects followed the neoclassical trends of the 19th century, but as the city grew (it is now home to 120,000) more modern concerns such as landscaping, ordered streets and metropolitan hygiene made it a model for subsequent development in Latin America.Cubanos call it La Perla del Sur, the "Pearl of the South," though Cienfuegos means "100 fires" — perhaps a reminder of an Arawak encampment, or maybe the nightly ritual of lighting up the celebrated cigars of Cuba. It's also a sister city of Tacoma, Wash.

5) Cigars

It took a Genoan mariner named Christopher Columbus to introduce tobacco to Europe, and his first contact came in Cuba, where the natives smoked thick rolls of dried leaves. Over the next couple centuries tobacco slowly gained its fans (and its detractors). Though cigars as we know them today were first commercially made in Spain early in the 18th century, they were made with tobacco from Cuba. Shortly afterward the cigar factories were set up in Cuba itself, as it was found that prerolled cigars traveled better than loose tobacco. For over a century the Cuban cigar was the pinnacle of smoking pleasure, and even in Castro's Cuba manufacturers have labored to keep quality and production high. One prime market — American smokers — is bound to catch fire once Castro is gone. More on the history of cigars.

6) Music

The signature image of pre-revolutionary Cuba might be the Tropicana Nightclub in Havana, where artists such as Nat King Cole headlined during the 50s (and local stars such as Benny Moré attained international stardom). Brass, timbales, congas, and guitar in syncopation over the years led to the dance style known as son, which in turn spawned salsa. With Ry Cooder's 1997 Buena Vista Social Club came a new dawn for Cuban artists performing Cuban songs, but the impact of Los Van-Van, the Afro-Cuban All-Stars and other Cuban-born performers from Desi Arnaz to Gloria Estefan have made the Cuban sound central to the modern world beat. More about Cuban music.

7) Alejandro de Humboldt National Park

In 1801 the German naturalist Alejandro de Humboldt visited Cuba on his extended tour of the New World, and 200 years later this rugged, rocky cluster of peaks in easternmost Cuba was cited as a World Heritage site. The primary reason is its unusually high degree of endemism — an astonishing 70% of its seed-producing plant life (spermatophytes) can be found nowhere else in the world, because the rocks in the area are toxic to many plant forms. This complex ecosystem also provides striking scenery, and the park is sure to become a favorite hiking destination for post-Castro visitors. More about the park.

8) Reefs of Cuba

It is, after all, a Caribbean island, in the same seas that inspire divers and snorkelers to visit Grand Cayman, the Bahamas and the other Indies. So diving off the shores of Cuba could become a favorite sport in the coming years, and with good reason — the reef systems surrounding the archipelagos south of Cuba, especially Jardines de la Reina, are extensive and well-preserved. The four species of sea turtles, spiney lobsters, manatees, and large and healthy coral fish populations found here are already known to diving cognoscenti; let's hope they can survive their inevitable increased popularity, as well as changes to oceanic health. More on the reef systems of Cuba.

See a Yahoo! News slideshow on Cuba

View a Flicker pool on Cuban Culture