04/06/2024
Centerline Adventures, my group travel company, has been going to Cuba since 2011. I have had some amazing experiences with the people who have all fallen in love with the people and the culture of Cuba. I personally have 3 trips that pop into my brain quite often when I talk about and think about Cuba - 1. Hemingway Lookalike Guys! Walking around Old Havana with 8 men who all had the white hair, the beard and the belly was very eye catching! 2. Wade Boggs. If you are a baseball lover, you know who he is. We brought balls, bats and gloves and gave to a group of young kids who you would have thought they had been given $1MIL! Wade showed them how to hold a bat, how to swing and how to stand like a baseball player! Very touching and humbling for us. 3. But this trip in February with Chef Sam Diminich and his guests took the proverbial cake! You may think it's only pork and beef, rice and beans...but you would be wrong! There are some very talented Chefs in Cuba and we are friends with one who is a Michelin Star recepient, Alberto Gonzales who owns the restaurant Salchipizza where he and Sam collaborated on a dinner for 20 of us. Read this article written by Kathleen Purvis for more details! During the pandemic, we all worried about what we were going to eat, if we would run out of basics...even toilet paper. We hoarded all that we could "just in case" the world came to an end. The people in Cuba live in a "pandemic" every single day over the last 65 years. That could certainly change...but that's a subject for another time.
Centerline Adventures is dedicated to helping where and when we can. Might be tipping more than usual, bringing items they need like Extra-Strength Tylenol or feminine hygiene products, or hiring an extraordinary person as our Destination Manager who knows everyone and everything about his country! Or working with an amazing percussionist to develop programs/camps for autistic children from the US.
Read our story on this journey with Sam Diminich, feel the passion he was surprised he would feel...then ask yourself how can you be a part of this opportunity to help while helping yourself. In February while I was laying on the beach, one of our beautiful guests came up to me and said this had been a "life changing" experience. I could hardly breathe hearing that. I thought I was the only one that loved the Cuban people that much!
Come with us! We changed our trip to January 13, 2025....we are going to do some amazing things that week. And we are building something that has never been done before....follow us on social, go to our website and sign up for the trip in January (already half full!) and let your mind and your heart be full of love and compassion for our neighbors 90 miles away to the South!
One dinner marked a decades-long first in culinary collaboration
