Travels of the Bay family and the Yoda Van

One of the most beautiful aspects of our trip is the fact that we can be so spontaneous.  We can change plans at a moment’s notice, go wherever we want, take as much time as we feel like, etc.  If we are tired of tired of driving, we can just stay put.  We are not bound by vacation schedules, return flights or two weeks of vacation per year.  Except for a few instances where we had to meet someone at a certain date we have been able to travel this way for our entire trip.  We’ve met a lot of people on the amazing beaches of the Yucatan who are only there for a week.  I’ve realized that it is a true luxury to be able to travel as we are and stay longer if we want to, or even be able to just come back since we hadn’t had enough.

 

After Justin left we headed straight out of town and two days later we were in Merida.  Once Matthias had recovered from Dengue we decided to head back to the coast.  It was over 300 kilometers back to the coast, but I really didn’t mind since it is such an amazing place.  Our real motivation to return was to get a flight to Cuba.  Going to Cuba was something I have wanted to do for a long time.  Flights to Cuba are fairly cheap if you fly out of Cancun.  We had a couple of offers from travel agents in Merida, but thought we’d head to Cancun to see if we could come up with a better deal and organize a place to leave the van. 

When we were in Merida we just couldn’t decide if we wanted to go to Cuba or not.  First we thought through the risk factor and the fact that the US Government says that no American citizens or permanent residents are allowed to go.  We know quite a few Americans that have traveled to Cuba and in the end we decided that we would be willing to take that risk.  Next we thought through the money issue.  Even if flights are fairly cheap there are four of us and it would easy cost us around $1500 for a 5 day visit.  In the end we figured that the experience of going to Cuba was worth that and we never would get it any cheaper anyways.  We also struggled with the fact that Matthias and I are getting sort of tired of seeing new things.  We’ve been traveling for almost 9 months now and have seen a whole lot of great places.  But I think we are becoming over saturated and are getting to a point where we can’t process or appreciate too much more new stuff.

Now the problem was this – we had spent 7 days in Merida taking it easy, hanging out, and being spontaneous.  Then we spent another day on a spontaneous drive to back to the coast.  Then another day in Playa del Carmen shopping randomly and looking for travel agencies.  Through all this spontaneity/indecisiveness we had just wasted a week and a half.  Then if you want to book a ticket you always book about 4 days in advance, so if we were going to book, we’d have to wait at least another 4 days before we could fly.  (At least that would leave us a lot more time to be spontaneous.)  Through all this we changed our minds at least 20 times.  At one point during all this hemming and hawing we were driving on this nice road with lots of beautiful butterflies and Matthias said “These butterflies are so annoying.”  I knew this man had reached his breaking point when little fluttering butterflies were pissing him off. 

Eventually I asked Matthias what the rush was and why we couldn’t just take it easy and hang out on the beach until we figure out what it was we wanted to do.  I never would have thought I’d say this at this point in the trip but Matthias is right – we are running out of time.  William starts school in September and we’d like to be back at the beginning of August.  We’d also like to spend 2 or 3 weeks in California, and a good week or two on the Baja.  We’ll be house-sitting near Guadalajara for about a month (although we’d like to stay more like 2 months).  Where we are on the coast is about 4500 kilometers from Tijuana which means we have a LOT of driving ahead of us.  If you start calculating backwards, we really don’t have much time.  So for now we are back on the beach.  It is beautiful and a great place to be, but I have this feeling that our trip to Cuba is slowly slipping away. 

Dengue fever (IPA: [‘deŋgeɪ]) and dengue hemorrhagic fever (DHF) are acute febrile diseases, found in the tropics, with a geographical spread similar to malaria.
  I swear, I think I just got over Dengue Fever. At least I had some of the symptoms typical for Dengue: flu-like symptoms, severe muscle and bone pain, nausea and all kinds of other nasty stuff. It also lasted only less than 7 days like most of the 10 – 100 million cases of Dengue fever every year. Contrary to popular belief, Dengue fever is not that nasty killing disease. It kills less people than the common flu, so I guess I am not sure if I am a real “Survivor”.
 

Anyways, it was our travel agent who claimed to have had Dengue 4 times.  After we had known him for approximately 20 minutes he had heard my entire medical history and he knew that it must be Dengue fever.  Then he offered us some kick-ass deals on flights to Cuba.  I think he must be right.  After all he is the same person who told us that it’s not really a problem for Americans to go there as long as you don’t tell anyone.  But that is an entirely different blog that I already started a few days ago.  The title of that blog is “WHY?”

We just left Cancun and made it to Merida near the Gulf of Mexico. Usually it’s Allison who is in charge of directions and our itinerary and I hardly ever look at a map, but the other day I took a glance and I noticed that Cancun is so close to Cuba, we could almost swim there. So we were seriously considering about breaking American law and travel freely.

The fact that Americans aren’t allowed to travel to Cuba strikes me as equally stupid as censoring live TV because of Janet Jackson’s nipple. It also reminds me of the other half of my own country when I grew up.

So can anyone please tell me “WHY”? What’s the deal here? If any lawyers are reading this blog please give us advice. What should we do? I am from a democratic country (Germany) and I am allowed to travel freely.  Our kids are both, American and German, but only William has a German passport. We never got one for Julian out of convenience. Are they allowed to go? And how about Allison? I once heard that traveling to Cuba is allowed, but not purchasing things there, because it’s considered “Trading with the enemy”. I have no idea if that’s true, but if it is, could I just invite Allison to Cuba, so she wouldn’t have to spend any of her own money there and what if she did do the unthinkable and break the law.  What should we do? We’d like to tell you about it in our blog, but we would have to lie and other than to our parents and our tax return we always tell the truth (almost at least).  It would be great to visit Cuba while Fidel is still alive, because I am sure Cuba will change a lot when he is gone.  If we do go I am not sure if we will ever able to tell you about it without the fear of prosecution.

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