Table of contents
- Motorcycle tour through Cuba More than just a relaxing vacation
- US program for group travel to Cuba
- Crowds around BMWs and Harleys
- Leisurely motorcycle tours are popular in Cuba
- Tour ends in Havana
Thorsten Dentges
35 pictures
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Blue sky, turquoise sea, white sand – this is how we know Cuba from the catalog and this is how it can look.
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But the sea and the weather can also be different.
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There is fishing in Havana.
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The Cubans can be colorful.
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Loving facilities, hospitality and cordiality can be found here on every corner.
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Shabby and yet charming facades too.
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Tourist taxis in Havana.
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Local vehicles come from another time, are mostly colorful and well-maintained.
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There are not many curves in Cuba.
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And yet, when one meanders through the landscape, it is enjoyed.
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The Harley-Davidson Road King finally gets a slant.
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The potholes in the streets are hard to miss
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Cuba is not the place for sporty speeds.
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Cuba drivers are here by motorcycle for other reasons anyway.
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You want to discover the island at a leisurely pace.
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You want to experience the country up close.
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And let yourself be moved by numerous sensual stimuli.
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That works wonderfully in Cuba.
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The group tour also includes all-inclusive beach clubs.
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Tobacco farms, cigar factories and classic car city tours are also part of the cultural program.
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Soot-spitting Russian military trucks, cyclists and horse-drawn carriages come towards you on the country roads and even on the autobahn.
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Completely crazy, everything seems like a journey through time through past decades.
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Often, curious and warm locals surrounded our motorcycles. Here it’s the other way around.
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Procedures are hardly possible – there are helpful people everywhere in Cuba.
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State palaces and slavery mansions caused envy and hatred in the past
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The decay in the cities cannot be overlooked.
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The Harley Road King circles its almost 400 kilos over cobblestones – luckily it doesn’t rain.
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Garage – or rather – spare parts store.
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The lush nature around the provincial town of Vinales can be ideally enjoyed in cruising mode.
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Impressions motorcycle tour through Cuba.
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Impressions motorcycle tour through Cuba.
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Impressions motorcycle tour through Cuba.
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Impressions motorcycle tour through Cuba.
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Impressions motorcycle tour through Cuba.
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Impressions motorcycle tour through Cuba.
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Tour tips
Motorcycle tour Cuba: more than just a relaxing vacation
Motorcycle tour through Cuba
More than just a relaxing vacation
MOTORRAD travel editor Thorsten Dentges was on a tour of Cuba with a Harley-Davidson Road King and a group of motorcyclists. In his travel report, he describes that the island is good for a lot more than just a relaxing holiday by motorcycle.
Thorsten Dentges
02/02/2021
The sky seems to be bursting, and someone up there seems to be turning on a shower. In any case, it pours gallons of it onto the rugged, steeply sloping and now also greasy road. Almost 400 kilos of Harley-Davidson slide over a series of rubber tires that are not very trustworthy, and the heavy iron tool can hardly be tamed. At 45, then 30, then 20 km / h, the Road King rolls past an oversized cement plant. At the pier in Puerto Mariel, rusted cranes tower up against the dramatic cloud-covered sky. Brutal prefabricated buildings with concrete walls discolored by mold complete the dreary, predominantly gray-tones picture when entering the city located a good 40 kilometers west of Havana.
Mariel boat crisis of 1980
Welcome to Cuba. A tropical paradise? A dream vacation with the motorcycle? Looked very different in the catalog. There were palm trees to be seen, white beaches, blue skies, colorful houses and cars, pretty people, shiny chrome motorbikes. And now that. So first a break, turn off the machine and keep yourself dry. The group gathers under a corrugated iron roof, there is water and cigarettes at a kiosk. Then nothing. Yes, rum. The bottle from a dollar fifty. Could the sobering scenery be nicely finished off with it? It’s just stupid that there are still at least 100 kilometers to the stage destination.
Thorsten Dentges
Christopher Baker calls the group together and sets off like a teacher on a class trip to the lecture. “Puerto Mariel is a historically significant place”, he explains, while the motorcycle travelers, whom he is supposed to lead through Cuba as a guide, suck on their water bottles. Baker explains that in 1980 more than one hundred thousand Cubans crossed to the United States from this port. The brief history: dissatisfaction with the living conditions under the socialist economy, suppressed protests, flight of opponents of the system to the Peruvian embassy in Havana, an angry Fidel Castro, who then wanted to throw all dissidents off the island, a US President Jimmy Carter, who then again welcomed all dissidents, and finally thousands of Cuban exiles launched from Florida in yachts, cutters, and sailing boats, who were promised to pick up their relatives wishing to leave the country via Puerto Mariel without a visa. The whole thing went down in history as the so-called Mariel boat crisis.
Castro sympathizer and Trump voter
Cuba connoisseur Christopher Baker, “National Geographic”-Author and writer of travel books, smiles a little pensively at the end of the sentence: “And in addition to the refugees, Fidel also sent serious criminals and madmen on the boats and thus out of the country, so to speak as a malicious greeting addressed to the USA.”
The 64-year-old Baker, who was born in Britain but has been a US citizen for decades, cannot and does not want to hide his sympathies for left-wing Castro-Cuba. He has been visiting the island regularly since 1994. Some of the travelers he has brought here under the canopy make no secret of their sympathy for Republican Donald Trump, their president-elect. And so an exciting discussion about refugees unfolds in the middle of this run-down Cuban port city. The Americans have just sought asylum themselves in a certain way – even if they are merely persecuted by relentless rain. So politically harmless.
US program for group travel to Cuba
As an outsider to this somewhat grotesque scene, one wonders what actually brought these people in motorcycle clothing together. After all, it hardly seems understandable why tourists should get lost here, of all things with conspicuous ones “Class enemy”-Motorcycles and strangely stranded in this historic Mariel, from where the mass death just described began almost 40 years ago. The answer is: “People to People”. This is the name of a US program for trips to Cuba. Because of an embargo, Americans cannot simply visit the Caribbean state (so that as little foreign currency as possible flows from the USA to Cuba), but a special intercultural exchange has made group travel easier for some years – North American sports teams, church groups or music clubs have been making use of this ever since . The Austrian tour operator Edelweiss Bike Travel also uses this program to bring US customers smoothly to Cuba. And Christopher Baker, as a lecturing tour guide who unites people, probably fulfills the necessary criteria to make such a package motorcycle tour possible for the Americans.
Thorsten Dentges
The itinerary includes a meeting with artists, scientists and athletes as well as various stops at historical sites such as the Che Guevara Mausoleum near Santa Clara or the legendary Bay of Pigs, where the United States crashed in 1961 with an invasion organized by the CIA . The all too obvious efforts of the Americans under John F. Kennedy to overthrow Cuba’s revolutionary government almost escalated into a nuclear war as a result of the Bay of Pigs invasion – the elderly still vividly remember the then dramatic global crisis in Cuba. The Bahía de Cochinos nowadays: a leisurely Caribbean sandy beach with bathers and amateur divers. And the motorcycles officially only serve as a means of transport on this cultural and educational trip to get to the individual program items. Unofficially, however, the cultural exchange plays a subordinate role – because those who book this trip want to experience a nice vacation time on the motorcycle and also away from it. That is why tobacco farms, cigar factories, old-timer city tours and all-inclusive beach clubs are also part of the tourist timetable.
Crowds around BMWs and Harleys
It has stopped raining now and everyone is staring at the BMWs and Harleys. There, within a few minutes, a crowd of people had formed around the machines. Whole families flock to the area, the residents of the surrounding houses evidently perceive the parked motorbikes as a welcome change. The now somewhat confused American tourists are bombarded with questions: “How much horsepower does it have?” – “More than four courses?” – “How fast can you go with it?” – “Where are you from??” The Cuban men talk shop about the technology, the women smile at their men because they sneak around toys like little boys, and children want to try out the machines. The mood is exuberant, there is joke and laughter, language barriers are overcome by committed gestures. Tour guide Christopher steps in as an interpreter if necessary. A few of the Cubans also speak a few bits of English. For a quarter of an hour, the five American and two Austrian motorcycle tourists on the small market square are considered the attraction par excellence, they are literally celebrated before they are greeted warmly and waving goodbye from Puerto Mariel after starting the engines.
Thorsten Dentges
Now the sun is shining, the sky is blue. After Viñales, winding roads wind their way into the lush mountains, where tobacco grows. The Vauzwo bubbles contentedly under the biker jeans. The asphalt is shared with ancient Amish sleds, which have been completely overhauled umpteen times using self-made and hand-forged spare parts since the 1950s. Soot-spitting Russian military trucks, cyclists and horse-drawn carriages come towards you on the country roads and even on the autobahn. The scenery is mixed with MZ-sidecars, Polski-Fiat 500, Ladas, VW Golf and Opel Astra from the eighties and nineties. Completely crazy, everything seems like a journey through time through past decades. But modern cars from Chinese production, electric scooters and even the latest Mercedes A and C classes can be discovered in the streets. What is almost impossible to see: new motorcycles. What shouldn’t surprise you as a motorcycle traveler, but still a bit strange: Everywhere people are filming you with their smartphones. When overtaking, driving past, refueling, stopping. It takes getting used to, apparently being a sight as a tourist itself. Welcome to Cuba!
The game like in Mariel – park your motorcycle, meet people, talk to each other, laugh, flirt – is repeated at almost every stop on this tour. It’s a heartwarming exchange, driven by pure curiosity and sincere care. Despite the obvious wealth gap – on the one hand the vacationers from rich countries, on the other hand the Cubans, whose government-regulated monthly income averages barely more than 25 dollars – envy does not seem to be an issue. And the more you get into conversation with the local people, the more complex the picture becomes. Cuba expert and apparently changing lexicon Christopher Baker also provides information on all the historical backgrounds and provides knowledge about the people and culture here. Yes, in Cuba there is sometimes great dissatisfaction with the economic and political situation, and yes, many Cubans would like to travel elsewhere and see more of the world. Most of them lacked the financial means or the official approvals to do so. But it is always astonishing with what joie de vivre and what pride in their country the Cubans meet. Baker estimates that, in the event of free elections, many would probably choose the existing system again – despite all the unmistakable shortcomings.
Leisurely motorcycle tours are popular in Cuba
The potholes in the streets, especially in the mountains above Trinidad, are also hard to miss. They would swallow whole mid-range machines and thwart any sporty drive. In some places the asphalt is completely exposed. Gravel, sand and gravel often garnish the road, and dogs, cows and broken-down vehicles sometimes block the passage. The Caribbean island is certainly not a paradise for Gaskoppe and Heizer, the motorcycle infrastructure is too poor for that, and delightful bends are the exception.
Thorsten Dentges
Cuba riders travel by motorcycle here for other reasons: They want to discover leisurely, be moved by numerous sensual stimuli. Want to experience the country up close. It works wonderfully with the motorcycle, this way you can get close to the people who live there. The nice thing is to turn off the machine, flicker to the hotel pool with a fat cigar, sip a mojito in the bar in the evening, listen to live son and bolero bands, dance salsa, watch the sunset on the sandy beach Watching over the sea, talking to the host of a casa particular, i.e. private accommodation. That is also part of this package tour.
Tour ends in Havana
The tour ends in Havana. The motorcycles park one last time in front of a hotel and curious people come over. Christopher Baker translates questions again and brings tourists and locals into conversation with one another. First you talk about the Harleys, then about the families, the weather, baseball, which is equally popular in the USA and Cuba. The Americans have meanwhile picked up a few Spanish words and jokingly knock them out. The Cubans laugh wildly at the funny, because incorrect, pronunciation. When we say goodbye, we warmly shake hands and hug each other. Tourist guide Baker seems satisfied – his trimmed for motorcyclists “People to People”-The program was obviously successful again this time.
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