I guess we should all be thankful that Cuba is the origin of the latest dance craze which is Salsa. For a very long time, the US government followed a strict permission guidelines for Americans to travel to Cuba for security reasons primarily because Cuba is a communist country.

But with Obama’s administration, just recently he announced exciting news that entails a celebration for US and Cuba as he issued new rules that will permits Americans to freely travel to the land of salsa dancing.

Expectedly, hearing upon this great news, the Cuban administration is getting pretty excited that there will be more Americans that will flood the cities of Cuba within months or weeks to shake their bootties and hips in the primary salsa clubs. “This is travel to Cuba for literally any American,” said Tom Popper, director of Insight Cuba, which took thousands of Americans to Cuba before such programs were put into a deep freeze seven years ago.
This program will be a rebirth of the past tourism package that Cuba offered before former President Bush restricted Americans to go to Cuba due to terrorists fear.

Before the announcement of this new US travel policy, many of the approved tours in the land are sponsored by museums and universities and centered only on educational theme, and only those wealthy Americans who are willing to spend thousands of dollars are the privileged ones that can afford the travel packages.

But now, although, tours to Cuba won’t go directly on jazz and salsa sessions and will have some lectures on Cuban’s history to justify the trips which are meant under the new U.S. policy, to bring regular Cubans and Americans together, there are no restrictions on age and education attainment as well as whether you’re wealthy or not, as long as you have the will and capacity to go to Cuba, then you can.
Americans are given the privilege to visit studios, galleries and museums to fully understand the Cuban culture. “Soon Americans can go salsa dancing in Cuba — legally!” said happily one of the tourists.

According to reports, Cuban officials say privately they expect as many as 500,000 visitors from the United States annually, though most are expected to be Cuban-Americans visiting relatives under rules relaxed in 2009. That makes travelers from the United States the second biggest group visiting Cuba after Canadians, with Italians and Germans next on the list. Many Cubans are positive that this new US policy is a big step towards democracy. “It’s more liberal than in 2000-2003 in a lot of senses,” said a resident.

Unfortunately, there are still many that are quite hesitant regarding this new policy.
“President Obama and the administration continuously say they don’t want more tourism and that’s not what they’re trying to do. But that’s exactly what’s happening,” said Miami Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, who was born in Ft. Lauderdale to a prominent Cuban-exile family. He argued that more travel does nothing to promote democracy on the island.
“The only thing it does is provide hard currency for a totalitarian regime,” he said.

Nonetheless, it was indeed exciting news that will surely entice Salsaleras to go down to Cuba and freely Salsa all night long!

Joanna Rossi, www.salsacircuit.com