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Strategies & Market Trends : The Epic American Credit and Bond Bubble Laboratory -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Broken_Clock who wrote (92170)	3/12/2008 4:08:06 PM
From: Elroy Jetson	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 110194

You can travel to Cuba through Mexico City. But if the Cubans stamp your passport you will need to "lose it" and get a replacement from the US Embassy in Mexico City. farecompare.com Coming back to the US with a Cuban stamp in your passport without a prior State Dept exemption will cause you great pain. Incidentally, in case you have a sensitive job, if you think the US Embassy won't know you were on a flight to Cuba, when you go to get your passport replaced, you are fooling yourself. In my opinion the trip to Cuba is not worth the inconvenience. Canadians vacation there because it's cheap, not because it's wonderful. .

To: Broken_Clock who wrote (92170)	3/12/2008 4:10:17 PM
From: stan_hughes	Respond to of 110194

AFAIK entering from virtually anywhere other than the USA or its possessions should work -- and the Cubans are usually smart enough to not stamp passports, especially US passports. Maybe try asking your travel agent what the best way to enter would be "just because you're curious", or if that's going to be a problem, try posing the same hypothetical question to an agent you don't know -- tell them you're doing research for a freelance magazine article or some other lame ass excuse and see what they tell you. Or maybe ask Jack Nicholson if you know him (ROFL) -- I hear he likes to golf in Cuba a lot and he also loves the cigars (as does Schwarzenegger). If you do go, once you're there you can blend in with all the Canadians. Just be prepared for the usual third world stuff, e.g. the last time I went to Cuba the 25ish-looking kid at airport customs & entry asked me "if I had a gift for him". I did a complete double-take and also the "Excuse me?" thing, and then he asked me again, "Do you have a gift for me?" You have to appreciate that this discussion takes place in a private cubicle out of earshot of any witnesses, i.e. they don't subscribe to this jazz where hubby and the wife and kids all go up to the entry officer all at once as a family unit. It is strictly one-at-a-time processing, no exceptions -- scared the crap out of my kids the first time. Anyways, not knowing which of saying yes or no to a solicitation for a bribe was going to get me detained, I took a chance on "Gee, sorry, I don't", and he let me through. Either that was the correct answer for establishing that I was not the type of person who is up to no good, or maybe he asks everybody for money and makes a bit of cash on the side, who knows. So not a good idea to be looking too prosperous on entering the country. It also doesn't help if you look like a drug dealer (or at least not one of the drug dealers the guards know and get paid off by) because it puts a bulls-eye on your forehead as someone they can try to shake down for a bribe to have them leave you alone. Of course, offering a bribe could also get you into as much, if not even worse trouble -- so I'd just stick with the midwest family look and act real stupid. But recognize in advance that your passport tags you as an American and you will have limited consular support if they feel like trying to railroad you