ADVENTURE
In 1996, adventurer Chris Baker shipped his BMW R100GS to Cuba. He learned a lot in three months and even wrote a book about it. It’s a great place to ride a bike…
Castro’s Cuba by R100GS, and what it’s like to ride there now.
Where are you right now? I’ve just returned home from leading a National Geographic Expeditions trip to Cuba.
Back in 1996 you shipped your GS to Cuba. How did you manage that? I’d been contracted to write a travel guidebook and saw an opportunity to create an adventure out of my research journey. I would ship and ride a motorcycle with a view to writing a travelogue which was eventually published by National Geographic. As a journalist, I was licensed by the U.S. government, but transporting the bike was a challenge due to U.S. embargo laws. Fortunately, I found a skipper with a license to run humanitarian aid and he agreed to take me across from Key West. I arranged paperwork upon arrival. It’s all much stricter these days.
What was it like riding through Cuba back then? This was during the ‘Special Period’ – a time of extreme hardship following the collapse of the Soviet Bloc. There was very little traffic (every fourth vehicle on the road was a pre-revolutionary American classic), and Cubans were struggling in every way. I experienced shortages of everything, notably food. The Cuban government hadn’t yet opened up to private enterprise, which would soon help pull the country out of extreme hardship.
You wrote a book about your experiences. What did you share with your readers about 1990s Cuba? Cuba is a very complex and enigmatic place to comprehend and has been subject to plenty of misrepresentation. The country had been totally dependent on the Soviet Union for three decades and subject to a punishing U.S. embargo since 1961. With the collapse of the Soviets, almost all imports – especially petroleum – stopped. Cuba turned to tourism to save the day. But the strong community spirit and genius inventiveness are really what helped Cubans survive a period they would rather forget. That’s the period that I saw Cuba struggle through in 1996, and the one that’s covered in Mi Moto Fidel: Motorcycling Through Castro’s Cuba.
What has been the high point of your Cuban adventures? Riding the island end-to-end when it was still virginal without a tourist in sight. That was a very special experience. The GS allowed me to ride off-road, and finding a B-26 bomber riddled with bullet-holes amid the undergrowth at the Bay of Pigs was a special thrill—i was probably the first foreigner ever to see it. But
‘The secret police came to read my notebooks’
overall, it’s the many interactions with the warm-hearted, fun-loving, dance-crazy Cubans that really stand out.
And the low point? Without doubt it was when the secret police came to read my notebooks as I was departing Cuba by boat in 1996. It was a heart-stopping moment to think that all my research for two books might have been lost on the whim of a policeman.
You now run the Cuba Motorcycle Tours travel company. How has motorcycling changed in the country over the last 20 years? Even U.S. citizens can now travel legally to Cuba on ‘people-to-people’ tours, such as I lead for Edelweiss Bike Travel. There are new bikes, too, including BMWS, Triumphs, and Harleydavidsons permanently kept in Cuba. But the Cubans are still riding their old Urals, Jawas and pre-revolutionary Harleys.
What’s next? Next year I have my eye on Asia, and particularly on touring through Japan. It’ll be a pretty big change from Cuba!
Follow Chris’s adventures at: cubamotorcycletours.com