Itinerary

Travel to Cuba with the Global Arts Media is under general license from OFAC, the U.S. Treasury Department, 31 C.F.R.§515.565(b)(2).

It is a requirement of the license that each traveler have a full-time schedule of educational exchange activities that will result in meaningful interaction between the travelers and individuals in Cuba. See www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions.

NOTE: The tour operator reserves the right to change accommodations and schedule as local conditions prescribe. We ask you to remain flexible as your hosts in Cuba do their best to ensure your comfort and that the goals of your visit are realized. Please keep in mind that you are traveling to an embargoed country that shares its scarce resources with its citizens as well as with its visitors.

MONDAY, JANUARY 22

Arrive José Marti Airport, Havana
Meet guide and driver and travel into the city to join Global Arts group.
Orientation and Welcome Lunch in Old Havana (Included)
A Walking Tour of the Plazas of Old Havana, (Plaza D’Armas, Plaza de la Catedral, Plaza de San Francisco and Plaza Vieja)
Check-in at your B&B accommodations.
Dinner (Direct payment)
Evening: Transportation to the opening activities of the 35th Havana International Jazz Festival!

TUESDAY, JANUARY 23

Breakfast at your hotel.
Workshop at UNEAC, the Union of Artists, Writers and Musicians, with ethnomusicologist, Dr. Alberto Faya. Founder of the Movement of the Nueva Trova and Moncada Group, Faya currently heads the Camino de Santiago group. As a musician, he has performed in important venues in Cuba and countries in Europe, Asia , Africa , the United States, Latin America and the Caribbean. He has recorded more than 40 songs and other works for radio, film and television that have won national and international awards.
A tour of Central Havana: Fountain of India, Capitol building, ¨Almendrones, ¨ vintage American cars, and the Prado.
Lunch in Chinatown (direct payment)
A walking tour of Chinatown and discussion of the history of the Chinese in Cuba.
Dinner on your own.
Evening: Activities of the Jazz Festival

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 24

Breakfast at your hotel.
Special Presentation: Meet with celebrated filmmaker Gloria Rolando at the Yoruba Association to view and discuss her most recent projects.
Visit to the ArteCorte neighborhood and exploration of Cuba’s first ventures into private enterprise. Stay for Lunch (Direct Payment)
Visit to the studio of artist Eduardo Roca Salazar (Choco), one of Cuba's most celebrated artists
Evening: Activities of the Jazz Festival

THURSDAY, JANUARY 25

Breakfast at your hotel.
Visit to the Crafts Market in Old Havana.
Lunch on your own.
Return to Havana.
Evening: Activities of the Jazz Festival

FRIDAY, JANUARY 26

Breakfast at your hotel.
Visit to studio of an acclaimed contemporary Cuban artist.
Lunch (Direct Payment)
Visit to Callejon de Hamel, an alley decorated by Afro-Cuban artist Salvador Gonzalez Escalona with themes, scenes and symbols from Afro-Cuban culture and religions.
Evening: Activities of the Jazz Festival

SATURDAY, JANUARY 27

Breakfast at your hotel.
Visit the Museo de la Alfabetización (Literacy Museum) that exhibits relics of Cuba's 1961 literacy campaign. Meet with museum director, Luisa Campos, who will explain the goals and accomplishments of the campaign and how Cuba's literacy model is being replicated in Venezuela, Bolivia and other Latin American countries. Literacy rates in Cuba are highest in the Americas.
Evening: Activities of the Jazz Festival

SUNDAY, JANUARY 28

Breakfast at your hotel.
Visit to Cojimar, the intimate fishing village made famous as the setting "Old Man and the Sea, for which Ernest Hemingway was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954.

• Stay for lunch (direct pay)
• Optional: Dinner reservations at San Cristobal, the five- star “celebrities paladar.”(Direct Pay)
• Activities of the Jazz Festival

MONDAY, JANUARY 30
• End of Tour. Departure for US.

A luxury hotel, The Grand Aston La Habana Hotel boasts a privileged location on Primera and D streets, right in front of Havana's Malecón. A superb resort, built to impress the most demanding traveler and managed by the largest and most prestigious hotel group in Southeast Asia, Archipelago International. Its elegant and modern design, emulating the new Caribbean urban lifestyle, perfectly incorporates the green space of its lush gardens in an urban resort.

Accommodations

Located in the heart of Old Havana, Casa Belen, an 1850 colonial home and bed and breakfast combines elegance and simplicity in beautiful historical site. In walking distance from major attractions and eateries.

*TRAVEL BONUS: THE MAIDS OF HAVANA
BY PEDRO PEREZ SARDUY

Complete your registration in full by October 31st, 2023 and receive a free copy of

the award-winning book, THE MAIDS OF HAVANA, written by renown Cuban author Pedro Perez Sarduy!

A prize-winning novel grounded in reality, THE MAIDS OF HAVANA, tells the moving story of Marta, an Afro-Cuban maid and her triumph over class, privilege and power in pre-revolutionary and post revolutionary Cuba.

Pedro Pérez-Sarduy is a distinguished, award winning poet, writer, journalist, broadcaster and cultural critic residing in London and Havana. In 1962 he was among the first graduates as literary adviser of the newly founded Escuela Nacional de Arte (National School of Art) in Havana; he studied classical language and literature at the University of Central Marta Abreu, Santa Clara; and English, and French literatures, at the University of Havana (1960-65) , where he also studied journalism (1967) .

He worked for Cuban National Radio (1965-79) and BBC World Service (1981-1994). He is the author of Surrealidad, 1967; Cumbite and Other Poems (1987, bilingual 1990); Malecón Sigloveinte, 2005. His first novel, Las Criadas de La Habana (The Maids of Havana/Les bonnes de La Havane) 2001, 2004, 2007, 2010, 2014. His work is in The Oxford Book of Caribbean Verse, 2005 and The World Record: International Voices from Southbank Centre’s Poetry Parnassus, London (2012).

He is co-editor of two seminal books AFROCUBA: An Anthology of Cuban Writing on Race, Politics and Culture, (bilingual 1993, 1998) and Afro-Cuban Voices: On Race and Identity in Contemporary Cuba, 2000. He was: Ford Foundation Writer in Residence Columbia University, 1989; CUNY Caribbean Exchange Program, Hunter College, 1990; Rockefeller Visiting Scholar, University of Florida, 1993; Rockefeller Fellowship Caribbean Program, University of Puerto Rico,1997 and Charles McGill Fellow Visiting Lecturer, Trinity College, Hartford, CT, 2004. Pérez-Sarduy was awarded in poetry by Casa de las Américas, 1966; Julián del Casal, UNEAC 1967, and Prix du Livre Insulaire, Ouessant 2008. In 2009 he received in Havana the Victor Hugo UNESCO bronze medal.