Page 41 - Dreamscapes Magazine | Winter 2021-2022

NOT YOUR
PAPA’S CUBA
WELCOME TO TROPICAL CHIC ISLANDS By Rebecca Field Jager
s my toes touch the sun-kissed tarmac at Cayo Coco Jardines del Rey International Airport, my mind skips to what surely lies ahead. Although often I’ve been the only Canadian in the room who has never been to Cuba, I’m here now and between my fellow trav- ellers’ tales, newsreels and other media, I figure I have a pretty good sense of the place. This will be a journey back in time, I muse, to an era during which no one cared
about gas-guzzlers or diesel exhaust, smoking was stylish, and a bad boy could be redeemed by his good writing.
I’m a bit surprised then when my tour guide introduces me to his homeland not with a Montecristo but instead, a synopsis of the country’s latest tourism offerings. Modernity then, and not nostalgia, becomes my new theme and a stay at Cuba’s latest off-island destination seals the deal.
”Classic cars. Cigar bars. Ernest Hemingway
(a.k.a. Papa) and the all-time classic novel,
The Old Man and the Sea.
ABOVE: When visitors arrive in Cuba at the Cayo Coco Jardines del Rey International Airport, they can be poolside in no time. There are plenty of resorts in the area. Stephen Smith
A
WINTER 2021/2022 DREAMSCAPES 41