Thank you, fidel
A friend dropped me an email with a link to this vid:
Best line: when "history dissolves you..."
I love the Coral Reefer sound of this band.
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Thank you, fidelA friend dropped me an email with a link to this vid: Best line: when "history dissolves you..." I love the Coral Reefer sound of this band. 2 comments to Thank you, fidelYou must be logged in to post a comment. |
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What a great song and video! I love it. The famous Cuban choteo with a great American gusto!
Please read article below. What is being done to prevent the selling of property taken by the Cuban govt. and sold to foreign investors when Cuban Americans , etc.. still hold the paper work stating their ownership?
Thank you for your input.
Cuba is in the throes of another revolution - now foreign buyers are welcome
By Graham Norwood
Last updated at 8:00 AM on 19th June 2009
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Change is coming to Cuba - and this means private holiday homes on sale to foreign buyers for the first time in 50 years.
Fidel Castro, the island's communist leader since 1959, has taken a back seat through ill health and his reforming brother Raul is now in charge.
Mobile phones, once taboo, are on sale. Personal computers and plasma TVs, previously hard to find, are openly on sale. A few western brands, such as Benetton, have small stores in the capital, Havana.
On the waterfront: Havana’s impressive five-mile seafront
The 848 new holiday homes at the Carbonera Club, an ocean-front development at the beautiful and unspoilt resort of Varadero, provide another example of how this huge island is slowly changing.
Building starts later this year and Carbonera's properties - designed by British, Spanish and Italian architects giving a modern twist to the colonial style that characterises houses on the island - will skirt the coastline on a 170-hectare site.
Some homes will be designed by Conran & Partners, clustered around private pools with terraces and courtyard gardens. Others will be on the waterside, looking across the Florida Straits.
There will be a yacht club - buyers can bring their own or hire club vessels - plus a five-star hotel, but the leisure centrepiece will be a golf club and driving range.
Visitors to Cuba can join the Carbonera Club for £615, allowing them to use the restaurant and leisure facilities. Any member can buy an apartment or villa.
'The club system allows us to have more users and therefore more facilities, including those who go on to buy,' says Christopher Lawton, sales director of the Spanish-based developer Esencia, which is building the scheme in a joint venture with the Cuban government.
Prices start from £920 a square metre (through Savills, 020 7016 3814, savills.com) .
British, Spanish and Canadian buyers are likely to dominate, until the ban on travel between Cuba and the U.S. ends.
'The Obama and Castro administrations are making peace overtures to each other,' says David Vaughan, of Savills.
'Just imagine how much busier Cuba will become when the American tourist trade arrives. This makes Carbonera a remarkable investment opportunity as well as a location on one of the world's most beautiful islands.'
Celebrities are already lining up for a share of the action, with the actor Jude Law and ballerina Darcey Bussell joining the club.
They are among the two million foreigners who visited Cuba last year, a figure that is predicted to double within a decade.
What they find is o ne of the Caribbean's most attractive destinations. Havana's large old town has pastel-coloured properties dating from the early 19th century, which have been renovated recently.
There is a five-mile promenade and far fewer of the brutalist communist-era towers than in emerging holiday markets in Eastern Europe.
Outside Havana, Cuba is even more beautiful. The one-hour drive to Carbonera is on good roads dividing lush countryside and the clear blue sea, with spectacular beaches along the way.
Temperatures are high - 20C in winter and 30C in summer. U.S. politicians have visited Havana for talks and President Obama says the U.S. ban on most travel and trade has failed to bring democracy to the island, prompting speculation that relations are thawing.
Greater international trade would provide an injection of cash. Cuba's roads, airports and railways need modernisation, and more shops, clubs and sports facilities are required for tourists and buyers who want more than just the beach.
But they look likely to arrive in the near future, escalated by schemes such as the Carbonera Club.
So light that cigar and pour out a glass of rum - Cuba is back.
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