Oh Cuba, how I love thee and thy people
so much, I must admit! What a truly special and amazing experience it
was to explore this isolated Caribbean nation, for a very short time
period, although it was an incredibly jam packed and hilarious
experience with several amazing people!
After arriving over 2.5 hours late from
Caracas, I entered terminal 2, which is where the flights from the US
and Venezuela come into (the two most popular destinations for Cubans
to leave Cuba and to find work and settle), I had no idea what I
would be in for upon arrival! I arrived into the arrivals area, and
was immediately shocked at how many people were just mulling about
and in the huge queues to pass the immigration desks. After waiting
in one line for awhile, and then realizing it said VIP and diplomats,
being the honest person that I am, I went back to another line, only
to realize that all the people in that previous line clearly weren't
VIPs or diplomats, and that their line was moving at a much much
faster rate....the line I was in, the woman working it was so slow
with her immigration procedures.....While waiting in line I had my
first experience of the curiousness of the Cuban officials, as a man
approached me and began asking me questions that an immigration
officer would normally ask you when you actually arrived at the
counter, but this guy was just floating around questioning people in
the line. He asked me some fairly simple things, such as my
occupation, where I had been, etc etc. Hilariously enough, I later
found out that a friend I would soon meet was a journalist, and when
he told the official he was a journalist they immediately asked if he
had a military camera, and to see his camera he was carrying and to
inspect it! Crazy crazy..so after finally clearing immigration, which
took probably about an hour and a half, I arrived into the baggage
claim area...and words or pictures can barely describe the mayhem
that was there.
There were two carousels to accommodate
3 incoming flights, and people's luggage was thrown all over the
floors everywhere, and there was no real sense of organization. You
could tell the airport really wasn't well equipped to handle that
many flights at once. I began to search for my bags in the absolute
chaos, while being run over several times by people with baggage
carts, tripping over bags on the floor, and even losing my sandal
underneath a lady's cart as I tried to pass over it and she clipped
me....needless to say, after finally finding my bag, and hearing
numerous people bitching and complaining about how they couldn't find
their bags, I was ready to get out of the madness...here's a quick
video to try and describe the ridiculousness of it all.
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| Welcome to Havana Aiport, good luck finding your shit! |
So after that fiasco, I arrived out
into the arrivals area, wanting to escape and was pretty much mobbed
by about 600 hundred Cubans yelling and screaming! They were all
waiting outside for their friends and family who were arriving home
for the holidays, and it was again absolute mayhem. Some taxi driver
was sort of in the crowd and asked if I needed a ride, and I said
yes, but that I needed to go change money first, so he kind of helped
me bulldoze my way through the throngs of people to escape onto the
street and then over into the next area for money change. There was
an atm next to the money exchange and I only had $60 US on me, so
after changing that, I tried to take money out and realized that none
of my cards worked in that machine...no worries, I figured I would
just have to find another machine and would sort it out later. I
inquired about the price to cab it into the city, and was told $25
US! I figured Cuba was cheap, and this seemed ridiculous, so I told
the driver I would call my hostel and ask for the price, and went
over to the payphone, which I soon realized didn't take any cash or
credit cards, so I had to pretend that I knew what I was doing with
the payphone and try and call. I saw some other gentleman near me,
and asked what the price of a taxi should be, but he wasn't from
there and had no idea, so I went back to the taxi and told him the
most I could pay was $20 Cuban Convertible Pesos (CUCs) which is
roughly a 1 to 1 exchange rate for USD. He said okay, and we went
outside to his car, and then picked up a few other Cuban people and
began the long drive into Havana. The airport was actually quite a
ways away from Havana, so I guess the $20 wasn't so bad, especially
when I realized the price of gas is quite high in Cuba. It took
awhile for the driver to find my place, but he eventually did, and I
was immediately greeted by a young local guy named Lester, who spoke
great English, and said he would show me to my place. We had
initially booked into a backpackers hostel, however, due to the lack
of internet, the hostel never really knew who was coming or going,
and was overbooked, but there were several residences in the building
who had extra space in their homes, and would kind of act as a spill
over place, so I was shown into a apartment owned by a kind man
named Carlos, and was shown there and settled in. The boys were all
gone out, so I was on my own and sat down and chatted a bit with
Carlos, who was about 40 years old, had a wife and one son, and was
fluent in English. It was my first experience with a Cuban, and
already I enjoyed the candidness and the bright outlook on life that
Carlos had, especially considering the lack of opportunities that are
provided for the people of Cuba. Eventually Henrique and his two
friends, Mateus and Diogo showed up, and I had my reunion with my
long lost friend, whom I had last seen in Siem Riep, Cambodia in
February of 2011, so it was a sweet moment. After catching up a bit,
we were all quite tired from our separate trips, and decided to have
an early and quiet night.
The next day we were up and went
upstairs to Lester's apartment for breakfast that his mother or
sister (not too sure of the relationship) made. The breakfast wasn't
the greatest, but it was something to eat at least, and after we
finished up, the lady told us she would be having a Christmas Eve
dinner that night, and that we were invited to come eat there, free
of charge, so we agreed to show up around 8 or 9 pm that night, and
went out for a wander around the town. We first stopped by the Plaza
de la Revolucion, where there was a large monument to honor Jose
Marti, as well as two buildings with images of Che and Castro on
their facades. After wandering around the area for a bit, taking a
few photos, we continued walking on down towards the Malecon, which
is a large beach area in Northern Havana. Before making it all the
way there, and enjoying some of the various sights, we stopped in a
little cafe for some Cuban “hamburgers” and beers, and were
pleasantly surprised to find the price of a hamburger to be 75 cents
and a beer to be 50 cents..win! After getting a feed and two Bucanero
beers, while watching a makeshift taxi stand where 1950s cars would
stop and pick up or let out passengers, as well as a man with a
broken down motorbike (with sidecar!), push his way through an
intersection, we were ready to continue on walking. It wasn't too
much later that some local guy approached us and started speaking to
Mateus about where we were from and such, and then telling us he had
a gift for all of us, and gave us 1 Cuban peso coins....and then he
asked for a gift or money in return....so we tried to give the coins
back, as they're worth about 4 cents each, but the man wouldn't take
them back and became angry we weren't giving him anything in
return...apparently a gift means a different thing to these guys! So
Mateus finally gave him some money to go away and we continued on,
laughing about the stupid situation.
We arrived near the Malecon, and
stopped in a Cuban supermarket, where you could actually buy some
American things such as a coca cola (Cuban Kola still is the main
cola you can find on the island), and we wandered around the strange
mall for a little while, before stopping off at a nearby 5 star
hotel, where we looked around for some cigars, checked out the
swimming pool area to see if it was worthwhile staying (full of old
gross old men in speedos, no thanks), and the guys changed some
money, while I looked around for an atm, but didn't find one. We made
our way back outside and wandered along the Malecon, all the way to
the National Hotel, where we were going to try and grab a mojito, as
the guys had been there the previous day, and said it was a nice
spot. While wandering along, it was neat to witness so many young
Cuban children playing baseball anywhere they could, even if they
only had one bat and one glove, the love of the game is so strong
there. We also happened to walk past the American embassy, which was
an interesting site, as it was this enormous and very modern looking
building, yet seemed to have no markings to distinguish it, and the
Cubans had built an interesting artistic piece consisting of lots of
poles and walls with slogans written on them, that may have been anti
American. We continued our walk, and passed by more children playing
baseball, while a curiously dressed woman nearby looked upon us for
quite some time, and appeared to be a prostitute, and shortly after
eyeing us all up, a police man approached her and started pulling out
some papers and appeared to be fining the woman or something...all
rather interesting indeed! After watching that for a little bit, and
throwing a ball around with two boys that were playing baseball, we
wandered over to the hotel and I went ahead of the boys, as I really
needed to use the toilet.
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| Quiet streets of West Havana |
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| Sweet Soviet cars |
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| This restaurant was all about the Revolucion |
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| Jose Marti Memorial |
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| Facades depicting two famous Cuban Revolutionaries |
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| Jose and the Cuban flag |
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| The missing link between Che and Castro? |
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| Scary looking dog warning sign |
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| Great invention..gives you the amount of time you have to cross the intersection |
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| Forger of Victories |
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| No word yet if Kim Jung is storing nukes here or not |
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| .75 cent Cuban "hamburger" with .50 cent beer :) |
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| taxi stop |
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| motorcycle with sidecar!!! but broken down :( |
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| children playing futbol in spare lots |
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| The Malecon |
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| Children playing baseball anywhere they can |
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| US embassy off to the left |
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| Poles erected by the US embassy...showing the disconnect perhaps? |
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| Our journalist friend with "military camera" |
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| more kids playing baseball |
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| snobby hotel that wouldn't let me in! |
I arrived at the main door, and began
walking in, and the doorman stopped me and asked if I was a guest,
and I mentioned that a few of us were just going to come have a drink
or two, and the guy wouldn't let me in because I was wearing a
singlet, and he didn't like that! So I went back to the guys, told
them that I wouldn't be able to get in, but then watched several
other people with similar attire get into the hotel, which pissed me
off a bit. The boys decided to just try and get in, and that I would
just walk within the group of them to try and get in, but sure
enough, the son of a bitch at the door stopped me again and started
yelling in Spanish at me, apparently saying he told me once already
that I couldn't come in...we contemplated going to buy a shirt
somewhere nearby for me, but it was already getting late and just
decided to head back to the hostel to chill out for awhile before
dinner. After cleaning up we made our way upstairs for the dinner
feast, which was absolutely delicious! There was a huge table with
various foods, including some amazing pork, and some potato like
vegetable called Yucca that was really really great! We enjoyed the
amazing feast, dipped into some rum, and smoked cigars with the Cuban
family that was hosting us, which included 2 grand parents, Lester,
his mother, a sister, an aunt and uncle and 1 young child, plus 4
Colombians that were staying with the family. After the delicious and
filling feast, we had some dessert and then they put on some salsa
music, and impromptu salsa dancing began in the living room with
everyone...the one cute Colombian girl kept getting pestered by
others to dance with me, so we tried to dance, but I reverted back to
2 step dancing, which totally confused her and made everyone in the
room laugh at the “strange Canadian dance” ha ha. We all had
planned to go out that night to a bar or nightclub, but had just so
much fun with the family and enjoyed our time immensely that we
didn't even notice it was nearly 3 am by the time people were falling
asleep and ready to call it a night! So we just wandered back down to
our place and crashed for the night.
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| Amazing xmas eve feast :) |
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| Cubans learn to smoke cigars at a young age |
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| and so the salsa dancing begins |
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| Making the Colombian girls laugh with my terrible dance skills |
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| We fit right in with the family :) |
The next day we were up, and feeling a
little bit of the effects of the rum, but not too terribly bad, and
popped out for breakfast with Carlos and his family, and he promptly
saw a bit of red in all our eyes and poured us all a rum and soda
water to start off the morning...Merry Xmas! Then the cigars were lit
up and more rum was poured, and for several hours we just spent time
around the family dinner table, eating, talking, drinking rum, and
smoking cigars...what a life! Carlos was an absolutely amazing host,
and a friend of his who lives in Miami was down for a visit, bringing
cheap and amazing cigars with him and handing them out to us, plus
another one of Carlos's neighbours popped by, and they began singing
and playing the guitar for us, in between discussing life in Cuba,
the challenges of living there, ideas for the future, insight on the
true feelings towards figures like Castro and Che (none of our hosts
liked any of the figures). We also got to learn a fair bit about the
friend from Miami, who was named Mario and had some lovely insight on
things to do and see in Cuba. Mario had actually been a professional
dominoes player when he was younger, wrote a few books on dominoes and
strategies, and when he went for a tournament to Mexico, he snuck
away and walked across the US border to gain his citizenship. For a
Cuban, either by foot or boat is the rule of thumb for obtaining
American residency, so he took the foot manner...a real genuinely
funny and crazy guy, who was very candid and provided us with hours
of entertaining stories over the next few days. Before we knew it, it
was already around 3 pm, and we decided we should at least get out
for a bit, and go find a swimming pool to chill out at for the day.
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| Typical morning for us..coffee, cigars, rum..maybe some food |
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| Hanging out in our guesthouse |
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| Merry xmas! Cuban cigar and rum mmm |
We initially went to one of the real
fancy hotels in the Miramar area of the town (the area where the
wealthy locals live, including the Castros), as Mario figured we
could swim at the one place as well as get money out there.
Unfortunately he was wrong, as there were no cash machines there, and
you had to be a guest of the hotel to use the pool, but the staff was
nice enough to told us about the other hotels in the area where we
could use the pool and which one had the best pool, so we went over
to that hotel, paid our entrance and hung out in the very cold pool
for the rest of the afternoon, before grabbing a bite to eat at the
hotel restaurant. At this point I was down to my last $7 and made a
run over to the nearest bank machine to see if I could take any money
out, and was once again shut out....the only cards that the atms in
Cuba accept are Visa cards, and because my Visa card was associated
with a US bank account, of course it was blocked, so I was s.o.l for
money...uh oh! Fortunately I was there with friends who said to not
worry and that they would spot me money until I could find a way to
get any. After finishing up our lunch, we wandered back to the hostel
in a taxi, which ended up being a hilarious ride, as our taxi driver
actually ran out of gasoline, and crawled to a stop, just barely
making it through a large intersection. I asked if we were out of
gas, and she laughed and told us to not worry, that she was prepared,
and went into the trunk, pulled out a jerry can of gas, and filled
the car up enough to get us back to the hostel! We were all having a
good laugh about the whole ordeal, as was she.
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| always carry spare fuel in your trunk |
We finally arrived back at our place to
hang out with Carlos for awhile and have a few (a lot) of rum and
waters. We finished off a few bottles, and met a friend of Carlos,
named Chapo, who worked at the nearby Cigar factory, and was selling
good cigars for a cheap price, as he could acquire them from the
factory he worked at. We indulged in a few of his cigars, and bought
a few of them, while continuing to work on the rum, which ended up
taking up several hours, before we finally decided to head on down to
La Casa de Musica Miramar, where we had been told there was some good
jazz music to be listened to.
We wandered down the street, trying to
find a big enough taxi to take all of us to the Casa, as we were a
group of 4, and most of the local and newer taxis could only fit 3,
so Chapo decided to walk with us to the taxi stand where the larger
cars were located. We figured Chapo was just going home, but all of a
sudden he hopped into the cab that we were taking to the Casa and
came along for the ride. We arrived at the place, and when we got out
of the doors, there was this huge random hole dug near the curb, that
a few of us almost fell into, and warned each other about, then some
random guy who was walking by, trying to sell us stuff actually fell
into it! It was probably about 3 feet deep, so it was a bit funny, as
the guy at least wasn't hurt. We wandered into the lobby of the Casa,
and I noticed an absolute stunner waiting in there, and thought oh
wow, this could be a fun place. The entry fee for the place was $15
USD, which is pretty outrageous for Cuba, and of course I didn't even
have any money so it was a steep fee to have paid for me, but the
guys covered it. Hilariously enough, Chapo tried to come in with us,
and was asking us to pay for him to enter, but the guys weren't going
to pay for him, as we barely even knew the guy, so security grabbed
him and kicked him out...poor Chapo....we didn't hear from him the
next few days, and thought maybe he was outside and fell into that
giant hole, never to be seen again or something! We entered into the
main area of the room, and it was one of the weirdest sensations
ever, as there was probably about 60 drop dead gorgeous women just
standing in there, looking at us as we entered, and immediately all
came over and started speaking to us and flirting, and asking where
we were staying. We immediately recognized all of these women to be
prostitutes, as we had heard that prostitution in Cuba was fairly
common, but this was absolutely ridiculous. It was what walking into
a burlesque parlour would likely feel like....we tried to avoid them
all, as we weren't interested in paying any of these girls, but did
notice several older white men in the room being entertained by these
girls...They all kept taking their turns taking a crack at us guys,
but we weren't having any of it. It was easy enough for me to get rid
of the girls, as I literally had no money on me, even to buy them a
drink as they asked for, and just kept telling them I was only there
for the music. I had to laugh when Diogo got cornered by one girl,
who wouldn't take no for an answer and was dancing up against him and
basically had him pinned against the wall, but eventually he was able
to escape.
We soon found out that there was more
of a nightclub like place upstairs that we could check out, where
there weren't any of the prostitutes supposedly, so we quickly left
the casa, having wasted $15 and wandered upstairs where we had to pay
another $10 to get in. The place was a lot smaller, but no
prostitutes, which was a lot better as well. We ended up just
spending most of our time together at the bar, not really chatting
with anyone, just hanging out, laughing at the terrible music that
was being played by some local artist, and lamenting the lack of
attractive women. We tried to make some new friends, but didn't
really have much success, so we eventually just cut our losses short,
and made our way back to place for the night.
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| Cuban taxi parties! |
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| Crazy Chapo! |
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| Dodgy old American car |
The next day I was hurting pretty bad
from all the cigars, rum, and lack of sleep, but I still had to grab
breakfast with the crew. Averaging about 3 Cuban cigars per day was
playing havoc on my respiratory system, and I was pretty phlegmed up,
so it would take a fair bit of time to try and clear out my sinuses
every day, gross! After finally getting up out of bed and meeting the
newest addition to Team Brazil, a wicked cool guy named Fabio who had
just arrived from Sao Paolo, we just hung out around Carlos's place
again, with Mario and Carlos, having some more cigars, of course, and
a few more rum and waters...damn! Mario had recommended a great place
for us to go and grab a bite to eat that afternoon, so we managed to
actually leave the house a bit earlier than usual, and go for a
wander down to the Capitol building, which was built to resemble the
Capitol Hill in Washington DC, but Castro wanted it to be even
bigger, as a sort of “Screw you USA”. We caught an American Car
cab, and made our way down to the Capitol, where we found a huge
lineup at the restaurant we were told to go check out. Surprisingly
enough, the huge lineup was actually for the restaurant on the first
floor, and the doorman told us we could go right up to the 2nd
floor if we wanted to eat there, so we made our way up and found this
little hall that sort of reminded me of a banquet hall at a wedding.
We grabbed some seats, and were eventually served some amazing and
relatively cheap food. The place was so damn good, that we ended up
making the trip to eat there 3 separate times. We later found out
that the restaurant on the first floor, which was recommended by
travel guide books, actually used the exact same kitchen and of
course had the same menu, yet it was 3 times the price, and only
really tourists would eat there, whereas the Cubans would eat on the
2nd floor. We looked out the window onto the first floor,
and although it was nice, it really wasn't worth the price and wait
in line! After our amazing and huge meal, we made our way down along
the boulevard checking out a few more sights, and being hassled by
salesmen, trying to sell us cigars. One guy even thought I was from
Turkey...haven't heard that one yet!
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| The Brazilians invade Cuba |
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| Estadio Latino America, home of the Industriales Beisbol team |
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| Car spotting in the streets |
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| Lime green taxi, why not! |
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| El Capitol |
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| Colourful Havana |
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| Lots of Canadian flags on random vehicles here |
We eventually made our way all the way
down, after stopping at the bank so Henrique could try and get money
out (his card also wasn't working in Cuba, uh oh!), and we arrived at
the main road along the Malecon. And waited on a main corner for a
taxi, near a woman who we couldn't really figure out if she was also
a prostitute or not, as she was just sitting on the corner, and as
every car would stop at the corner she would inquire where they were
going before eventually hopping in one...I guess she was sort of
hitch hiking her way back to wherever she was going. We tried to find
an American cab in the area, but couldn't so we had to take two
separate cabs this time around, since our group was now 5, and we
couldn't find an American car. We made our way back to the hostel,
where we added a 6th to a our group, a lovely Englishman
named Jamie, who had come to Cuba with his now ex g/f, from Sweden.
They had planned their trip together, but then broke up about 3 weeks
before it, but still decided to take the trip nevertheless. He needed
to get out and do some things, so he wanted to come out with us that
night. We decided to avoid the Casa de Musica this night, and just
head down to a cool little jazz spot called El Gato Tuerto (The
tortured cat), where they had a wide array of performances going on
that night. It was only $5 to enter, and we were treated to some
pretty great music, including jazz and a sort of church choir like
group. After a few mojitos and more cigars, we were all still fairly
tired from the night before, so we stuck around until about 1:30 am
before making our way back for the night.
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| Big theatre near the Capitol |
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| Ready, get set, go! |
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| More Russian cars |
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| El Gato Tuerto |
The next day started out like most of
the others, with breakfast, cigars, and more rum and stories with
Carlos and his family for several hours before finally sneaking out
again to wander around old Havana this time. Old Havana is a rather
charming place, where you can spot locals out in the streets playing
dominoes, dancing, playing baseball and soccer, or just talking
amongst each other. The people in the streets are so friendly to,
always willing to say hello or hola, and inquire about where we're
from and chat a little bit about Cuba. The lack of internet and
modern technologies really keeps people down to earth and grounded,
and a lot more willing to remain simple and friendly, it's a really
lovely experience. After wandering around, checking out some of the
lovely architecture, a cigar shop, and looking around for bank
machines (which wouldn't work for neither Henrique or myself again),
we eventually stopped back at our new favourite Cuban restaurant,
ordering a large feast again. I ended up getting the stuffed chicken
breasts, which I figured would be a normal size, but of course it
ended up being 3 large stuffed breasts, combined with 2 sides, which
made it nearly impossible to finish it all. Because it was only $6
for the whole meal, and there was so much, I just finished half of it
and took the rest home. I think at that particular meal, the only
person to finish their entire meal was Diogo. After our feast, we
wandered outside to find a cab, and while waiting in the streets some
large 50s bus/truck thing passed by us, and I mentioned it would be
super sweet if we could take one of them as a ride, and sure enough,
it was operating as a taxi service, and we convinced the driver to
take the 6 of us back to the hostel for a decent price.
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| Cuban train museum |
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| nice mix of bicycle taxis and buses in Old Havana |
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| busy streets of Havana Viejo |
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| Cannons and Cannonballs are commonly used as road blocks in the country |
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| Where are we again? Oh right Havana with a b! |
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| Spotted two Brazilians in Cuba somewhere |
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| Henrique and Mateus discussing the finer points of photography or Brazilian waxing |
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| It's about 5 bells |
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| Just a normal $4 meal...nice serving size! |
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| Seriously, how am I supposed to finish all that! |
We arrived back at the hostel, and were
surprised to see Chapo sitting at the counter, and we all had a good
laugh about how we thought he might have disappeared, but was now
standing in front of us, alive! We started dipping into more cigars
with him, and of course Carlos starting pouring the rum and soda
waters...and pretty soon we were another few bottles in. We had at
least picked up a few and given them to Carlos as a gift for all his
hospitality, as we were planning on leaving the next day, and he was
also heading out to his hometown near Guantanamo Bay to spend the New
Years with his parents and family over there. We enjoyed our last few
drinks and time chatting with the lovely man, including being shown
some Ju-jiutsu moves in his kitchen, before deciding to make our way
out for a night out in some cafe near the Plaza de Revolucion that
Mario had recommended to us. Chapo was leaving at the same time as
us, and we joked around that he was probably going to follow us to
the nightclub again, but he decided to head home and go to sleep, as
he had to work in the morning, and the previous time he followed us,
his day at work was rather dreadful. We arrived at the building where
the nightclub was supposed to be, but found it was closed because it
was a Thursday night, and they were only open late on Fridays and
Saturdays, bummer! So we decided to wander around, look for a taxi,
and try our luck at the Casa de Musica Miramar, one more time...real
suckers for punishment! We found some super sweet pimped out purple
Cadillac, with a wicked cool driver who said he would take us all,
even though we were 1 person to many to be legal, so it was a very
tight squeeze. Sure enough, we were driving along and a police
officer saw us and pulled us over. We looked on as the driver showed
him some documents and then they shook hands and the driver came back
with a big shit eating grin. He then told us that it was his birthday
and the police officer had let him go, so we began to joke around
that he probably carried a different driver's licence every day of
the year to show it was his birthday that day to get out of any
fines! We arrived at the nightclub in absolute style, and wandered
upstairs.
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| Typical night at Carlos's place as well ha ha |
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| Purple Caddy as a taxi? hell yeah! |
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| The boys are here! |
Of course within the first 5 minutes of
walking in I saw a real pretty girl smiling at me, so I politely
smiled back, and within another 2 minutes she was over talking to me,
and within 3 minutes asking where I was staying and if I wanted to go
there with her immediately...at this point I knew it was just another
prostitute so I started to ignore her, and then she asked if I was
gay or something! I just politely told her that I wasn't interested
in paying for anything, and she eventually got the hint and went off
to try her luck with the next guy. We spent most of the night sitting
right at the bar, as buying a bottle of rum was only $5, so we just
had a few of those and hung out with our group. Eventually a few of
us wandered outside for some more cigars, and I had to laugh at
Fabio, who was trying to light a cigar of his that was obviously
broken and had spent a bit too much time in his pocket. I took it
from him and punted it like a football across the room, while he went
to go look for it, until I showed him a full and unbroken one that I
had. At this point we met two Cuban girls, one of whom spoke a bit of
English, and we ended up heading inside to dance for a bit, where we
found Mateus to be passed out in a chair, after having wandered
around the bar trying to meet new people with the bottle of rum, but
having a bit too much. After dancing with the cute Cuban girl, I
decided to make a bit of fun of Mateus while he was passed out in his
chair, much to the Cuban girl's delight. (
dance Mateus!)After this little number, I
went back to her and hung out with her until close. After a kiss
goodnight, and grabbing her number for when we came back to town, we
were outside to find a ride home. Of course, we couldn't find an
American car cab, so we hopped into some other smaller cab, and I had
to ride in the trunk, fun times, while we put Mateus next to the
window in case he became ill. We made our way back, and Jamie and I
just had another cigar and chewed the fat until about 6 am before
calling it a night.
 |
| My new Cuban lady friend on the right |
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| Me in the trunk, Henrique enjoying the middle, Mateus sleeping on the left |
 |
| A typical purchase during the day |
The next day we were up, and I skipped
out on breakfast, as I didn't want to get up for 10 or 11 am, so I
slept until around 1 pm before the Henrique and Diogo decided to head
out and try and arrange us a ride for Trinidad that afternoon. They
tried the bus station first, but all the buses were booked out until
the end of January! Apparently holiday season in Cuba causes the
public transportation to fill up rather quickly yikes! So they looked
around to try and find a private car that would drive us down to
Trinidad, as Jamie decided he would come with us so we were a group
of 5 to go there and we needed a big car to take us there. They found
a guy who would take us there for a decent price, and eventually
showed up around 2 pm, and we were waiting outside when the guy
showed up and we realized that the car wouldn't be nearly big enough
for us all, so Henrique and Diogo went again with the guy to try and
find a bigger car. We were kind of wondering what happened to the
guys, as it was again over 2 hours later before they showed back up,
finally with a much larger American car. We had spent about 2 hours
just hanging outside the apartment with all our bags, waiting for our
ride, and we figured we would take about 3 to 4 hours to get to
Trinidad, as it was about 330 kms from Havana. Jamie showed up at the
last minute with a bottle of rum, and joked that he had asked for a
bottle of water in broken Spanish but ended up with rum, not knowing
what was going on! We put all of our baggage into the large car, and
we were finally on our way, leaving Havana around 5 pm, after having
planned to try and leave around 1 pm. We were all pretty tired, and
the road was long, as there were numerous check points and stops
along the way, plus the old car used water as a cooling fluid, so the
driver had to stop several times to refill his water in the radiator.
At least the car's back seat was relatively comfortable, and we were
able to take turns sleeping, although Jamie managed to fall asleep
and fall right onto my shoulder, and I didn't have the heart to wake
him up and shuffle him off, so I kind of ended up wedged in a funny
manner and didn't get much of a chance to sleep myself.
 |
| Thought it was cute that this guy had a Tim Hortons jersey on |
 |
| Our Ferrari that took us to Trinidad ;) |
 |
| Finally ready to go |
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| My Spanish must be bad, I asked for a bottle of water and got this instead! |
It must have taken us damn near 6 hours
to get to Trinidad, as we arrived near 11 pm, and still hadn't booked
any places. Fortunately our driver was pretty well connected, and had
a few home stay numbers, so we stopped at the first place, but they
were full, and he eventually found us another spot to settle into. We
dropped off our bags, and were going to try and grab some showers,
but it was already nearly midnight, so we just decided to go wander
and find the famous Cave nightclub that I had been told about by some
Swedish girls in Mexico. It was an old military storage cavern, that
had been converted into a nightclub, and was meant to be super cool.
We grabbed a quick bite and some rum, before making our way over to
the Cave, and entered inside and I was pretty impressed. It almost
felt like some old James Bond villain lair, as it was a huge open
room, with the DJ booth way up at the top, in a glass cage. The entry
was $5 USD and apparently included a free drink, which I had no clue
about and didn't find out until the next night. The only problem with
the place was that the bar was very tiny, and crowded, so it was
difficult to get a drink, and once again it was filled with ladies of
the night. I had noticed one cute girl smiling at me, so I went and
talked to her and her friends, and brought them over to meet the
guys, but then we soon realized they were after money again..damnit!
We eventually ignored them, and just continued to party with
ourselves, and enjoy the great music, and cool atmosphere. At one
point I met some local guys at the bar, and they started asking me to
buy them a beer, which seemed to be a common theme with a lot of the
locals. They were always asking us to buy them a beer or give them
money for cigarettes, which became a nuissance. I ended up buying one
guy one just because he wouldn't leave me alone, and then his friend
wouldn't stop bothering me so I just left them, and soon enough the
club was closing so we made our way out and began the walk back to
the hostel, stopping once again at the pizza joint for some late
night food. The two guys that I had bought a beer found us in the
streets and followed us for awhile, asking us to buy them beers and
cigarettes again, but this time we just told them to get lost, and
they ended up buying themselves beers, and didn't offer us any,
selfish! We eventually just went back to the guesthouse and called it
a night.
 |
| Electric Fridays at the pizza shop |
 |
| one of the coolest clubs in the world! |
The next day we decided to head down to
the beach for the day, so after a tasty breakfast, the lady arranged
for transportation for us to the beach. It was a lovely ride in the
convertible, cruising along and witnessing locals with their ox drawn
carts, and old tractors travelling along the highway, doing their day
to day activities. We arrived at the beach, and found a spot to
settle down and just chilled there for most of the day. I went out
into the water once, but then Diogo was stung by a jellyfish and was
in a fair bit of pain, so I decided to avoid the water for awhile, as
it's a pain in the ass getting stung. The beach wasn't really the
greatest I've been to, but at least there weren't any touts trying to
sell us things, and it was a good mix of locals and tourists.
Eventually the guys spotted two of the Colombian guys we had met a
few nights earlier in Havana, and decided to go try and find the
girls, while I just hung out with Jamie, discussing the Nietsche
philosophy book that I've been trying to read. Jamie had completed
his Masters in Philosophy, so it was interesting to pick his brain a
bit about the subject and what the book was exactly trying to say,
since the language is a bit archaic, and half the time I really don't
understand what's going on. He gave me sort of a guide to what to
look for and try to understand, although said it was a lot easier to
purchase the accompanying notes book that helps explain the thoughts.
After the philosophy chat, the boys came back and were quite
disappointed in the swim wear that the Colombian girls were wearing,
saying it wasn't very attractive at all ha ha ha. We ended up just
hanging out a bit longer before wandering over to find a snack bar,
until it was getting close to sunset. We ran into two more Brazilians
that we had met the first night, and it became a Portuguese party,
with Jamie and I the outsiders, although I have been finding that my
Spanish vocabulary has actually helped with understanding a bit of
the Portuguese. We ended up just hanging out for the sunset, before
our driver finally was ready to take us back into town.
We had arranged to have dinner with the
family that was hosting us in the evening, as it was $10 and we could
have lobster if we wanted, so we figured we would give that a shot.
After getting back to the hotel, cleaning up a bit and relaxing, we
made our way over to the house that Jamie and Fabio were staying at,
which was across the street from Henrique, Diogo, and my place. We
arrived and were stunned by the massive spread that the family had
prepared for us. There were huge lobsters, tons of vegetables,
fruits, salads, soups, breads, and more...just absolutely amazing. We
dug in and the food was incredibly tasty, which was pretty much
always the case in Cuba, contrary to what other travellers had told
me. Maybe we were just lucky and picked the right restaurants and
families to stay with or something, but many other travellers had
said the food was no good in Cuba, but I was very impressed to date.
After the amazing feast and a few beers, we were ready to head off
and check out La Casa de Musica, so we wandered down there and found
a huge crowd of people outside, watching some live dance and music
acts. The music was actually kind of bad, and it was really crowded
and hard to get a drink, so we made our way up further to where the
actual nightclub part was and wandered in there. It was fairly empty,
and mostly just full of prostitutes and local guys. We grabbed a few
Cristals (local beer) and smoked some cigars....living the dream,
being up in the club drinking Cristal and smoking Cubans ha ha. The
place started to fill up nicely an hour or so later on, but by that
point we were ready to head off to the Cave for round 2. We made our
way over there and it was just as busy as the first night, but there
were more tourists there this night. I happened to have my ticket
from the night before and noticed it said “thank you, looking
forward to your return” in Spanish, so as a joke I showed the door
guys it and said I have returned. Rather than give me a new receipt
for entry, they just gave me back my old one, and that was when I
found out shortly afterwards that it was good for a free drink, so I
was now out one drink, damnit! We got inside and grabbed the mojitos
and ended up meeting a group of 3 really cute Cuban girls who spoke
perfect English, and actually weren't prostitutes..shocking! We ended
up hanging out with them for awhile, and then I was smoking a cigar
and one of the girls grabbed it from me and went to take a puff of
it, but put it backwards in her mouth and burned her lips! I saw it
at the last minute and tried to stop her, but wasn't able to, and she
actually got kind of mad at me!
 |
| Loving the beach and my hot speedos ha ha ha |
 |
| Up in the club, drinking cristal yo! |
Eventually the place was closing, and
Jamie had a chance with the one girl, but her cousin wouldn't let her
go anywhere, and made sure that all 3 of the girls went home with
him, so we just wandered the streets a bit more, making a stop at the
late night pizza shop, only to find it closed damn! So we just
wandered back to the guest houses, and called it a night. The next day
the guys decided to go to the beach again, but I was kind of tired
and didn't really feel like paying the money to go there (not that I
had any money mind you), so I just stuck around the guest house, had
breakfast and practiced some Spanish before wandering around the town
a little bit, trying to find a place to watch the football games. I
ended up at a super fancy hotel and inquired about the game, but they
didn't have it showing and told me to head to the hotel associated
with the Cave nightclub, but it was quite a walk, and the guys were
meant to be back by 3 pm and we were supposed to head out around 3:30
pm back to Havana, so I just wandered around Trinidad and admired the
friendly and pleasing town, before heading back and waiting for the
guys. I had to laugh at Henrique when he showed back up with a very
funny burn that looked like he was wearing a bikini top! The boys got
ready to go, and our chauffer that drove us from Havana to Trinidad
showed up and we were ready to head on back.
 |
| colourful and quiet Trinidad |
 |
| One of my favourite signs...Horse drawn carriage crossing |
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| Central Park Trinidad |
 |
| Lovely Trinidad |
 |
| Nice bra tattoo! |
 |
| The chicken riding in style :) |
 |
| The Trinidad crew, complete with beautiful car and woman on roof creeping |
It was nice of him to bring us a gift,
which were the $3 Cuban pesos coins that have Che Guevara's face on
them, but hilariously enough, Henrique later accidentally used his coin
to pay for one of our taxi fares later on thinking it was a $1 coin,
oops! It was a bit quicker of a drive back to Havana this time, as we
had less check points to go through on the way back, and we left
early enough to actually see some of the coast near Trinidad which
was quite lovely. We made our way back to Havana and had planned on
going back to stay at the apartment building where we had stayed
before, but Mateus had found a hotel in old Havana that was pretty
close to the same price, so he booked two rooms there for us.
Unfortunately when we arrived, we learned that Cuban booking systems
aren't so exact, and that they will often just give the room away if
someone else shows up first, even if it's booked, so there was only
one room for the 6 of us, but the hotel was good enough to at least
find a nearby hotel that had the same rate, so Diogo, Henrique, and I
wandered over there and found out that we were staying in the Lincoln
Hotel, which was a fairly famous landmark in old Havana, as it was
the hotel where the famous F1 race car driver Juan Manuel Fangio was
kidnapped in the 1950s by Fidel Castro's men, to try and force the
cancellation of an F1 race there, and to show the weakness that
Bautista's government had, when it was unable to track down the
kidnappers after 3 days.
After checking in, and checking the
football scores on the tv, then realizing the hotel had internet, but
then after inquiring about it, being told that they didn't in fact
have internet and I would have to go to a another hotel nearby, I
just decided to stay in the dark until I left Cuba. Surprising how
difficult it is in this day and age to be dark, with regards to
outside news, emails, facebook, etc. We got settled in, although they
didn't actually have a room for 3 people, so we had to split the
costs of 2 rooms between the three of us (and at this point both
Henrique and myself had no money as we couldn't take any out, so
Diogo was on the hook for us). We got ready and wandered back over to
the other hotel where everyone else was staying, and sorted out some
plans for the night. We had to wait for quite some time as Fabio had
to go to the airport to pick up another Brazilian, who was arriving
that evening, and we said we would wait around for him, but it was
already getting pretty late, and we were about to leave without them,
when they finally showed up, so we finished our cigars and beer, and
decided to go check out a Jazz club called La Zorra y el Cuervo
(which I later found out means The Fox (female) and The Raven. So now
I at least know that the famous movie/tv character Zorro actually
means “The Fox”. We hopped in a few taxis and drove by one really
busy looking nightclub that we asked about, and were told it was the
gay nightclub of Havana. We arrived at the Jazz bar, paid our $10
entry fee which included 2 drinks, and enjoyed some incredible Jazz,
as well as more cigars of course....by this point in time, I think
I'd already been averaging 3 per day, but when in Rome! After the
jazz wrapped up, it was time to leave, and Henrique and Diogo wanted
to continue on nightclubbing, but the rest of us were tired and were
ready to head back, so we just made our way back.
 |
| This is what Cuban drinking is all about mmm |
 |
| Jazz in The Fox and Raven |
I arrived back at the hotel and went to
bed, but was up around 8 am and noticed that Henrique hadn't made it
back yet..so I was kind of curious. After an hour or so of just
waiting around, I checked in Diogo's room and found that he had
decided to sleep in there, so I just wandered up to the top floor for
breakfast, which they didn't actually end up having, so I had to
order a Shrimp Cocktail, which wasn't really that good at all, and
the coffee was pretty bad as well, but at least the view was great!
After hanging around there for a little while, we wandered over to
find the guys and figure out the plan for the day and especially the
night, since it was New Years Eve. We had inquired at one of the big
hotels that was supposed to be hosting a really good party, but they
told us it was $100 for the event, which included food and drinks,
but still, for Cuba that is pretty ridiculous, so we decided against
that quickly. Mateus and his g/f decided they were going to do a
cigar factory tour, and head to a large ice cream shop, where two big
scoops were 25 cents, but the rest of us wanted to wander around Old
Havana a bit more, so we did just that. Most of the guys hadn't eaten
yet, so while wandering around some lady started chatting with us and
convinced Jamie to follow her to a French restaurant, where we found
the food to be terribly over priced, and they told us that the price
was a bit higher because they had to pay a commission to the lady
that brought us in, which deterred us, so we continued wandering
until we found a quiet little Spanish restaurant. We settled in
there, and the food was awesome, as were the staff members. I had to
laugh a bit when I noticed the one server was wearing a belt and
suspenders at the same time, which reminded me of a friend from
University who once exclaimed “that makes about as much sense as
wearing a belt and suspenders at the same time” when a Math teacher
had put up an equation that actually made no sense, and he couldn't
explain why it should make sense by saying “that's just the essence
of the Math”. I couldn't resist grabbing a photo of the guy and
sharing it with my friend immediately.
While at the restaurant, a group of 2
African girls came in for some mojitos and overheard the guys
speaking Portuguese at the table, so they inquired in Portuguese
where we were from, much to the surprise of the group. It turns out
the girls were from Angola, and there was a large group of Angolans
studying in Cuba, and they were going to be having a big Angolan New
Years party that evening at a hotel about 25 minutes away from
Havana, and said we were welcome to come. Since we still hadn't
really figured out any plans, a few of the guys were interested in
this idea, although Jamie and I had reservations, just because we
weren't too sure what the language barrier was going to be like, as
the girls didn't speak any English, and they mentioned that only one
of their friends spoke English, so we felt like it might not be so
good for us to go to the party, but told the guys they were welcome
to go. Fabio was pretty fond of the idea in particular, but we
decided to talk to Mateus later on and see what other plans we could
put together. Throughout our lunch I also noticed the chef coming in
and out of the kitchen, wearing a lovely black chef's hat, and
thought back to the first few weeks of my trip when I was in Nepal,
and my friend Dave and I kept getting our photos taken with chefs
while wearing their hats, so I hopped into the kitchen with the chef
and took my crack in the kitchen. After a few laughs, we paid our
bills, and were back in the streets to wander around a bit more. We
decided to stop at a nice cigar shop near the port, where we could be
certain we were buying real cigars, not the possibly fake ones that
Chapo or others were selling us. Unfortunately for me, my cards
didn't work in the shop, but Diogo's did, so he was able to buy quite
a few cigars, dropping about $160 on them (although most of them were
actually for Henrique, who was going to pay him back). While browsing
the shop, Fabio and his mate went for a quick walk and told us they
would meet us in the nearby square in a bit, so we went to find them,
but they didn't show up, and after 30 minutes of waiting, we just
went and found a restaurant with some live music and sat down to
enjoy a beer.
 |
| Sharp dressed man |
 |
| Cooking up a storm! |
 |
| Sweet motorbike |
While hanging out and watching the
music and dance, we ended up chatting with a few Dutch guys that were
in the same situation as us, unable to find any real evidence of a
good New Years party. Apparently New Years eve in Havana is a time
where Cubans usually stay home with friends and family, and the real
party night is Jan 1st which celebrates the Day of the
Revolution, when Castro and Che and co. Launched their guerilla
offensive to overthrow Bautista's government. We told the guys about
the Angola party, and that we would get their contact info in case we
figured something out. Meanwhile, we returned back to our hotel after
a few beers, and decided to head out as a group to find some dinner.
I had tried calling the Cuban girl that I had met a few nights
earlier, but her cell phone was turned off, so I couldn't even try
and figure out where she was going for the night, so I just gave up
on that. We wandered around and around old Havana for ages, and it
became apparent it was going to become difficult to pick a spot, as
we now had a group of 8, all with varying opinions on what to do. At
one point we passed a restaurant/bar that looked somewhat lively and
were told it was $10 for dinner, a mojito, dessert, and coffee, which
most of us were in agreement with except for Mateus and his g/f who
wanted to go check out a restaurant a bit further away, so we parted
ways and sat down in the restaurant. It ended up being a great spot,
as the food was real great, there was an awesome mix of Cubans and
tourists, and the music was super cool. By the time we knew it, it
was already 11:15 pm, and Fabio was worried about the New Years
party, and really wanted to head to the Angolan party, but the rest
of us were fine with just staying where we were, so we all ended up
staying there for the festivities.
 |
| A superstitious thing done by Cubans to keep away evil spirits in the New Year...pork head with chicken body |
At one point in the evening, a couple
had wandered in, and the woman kept staring at me while her mate kept
trying to keep her attention, but she was very distant from him. It
was quite an odd sight, and a few of the guys at the table noticed
that same thing, how she kept pulling away from him and staring over
at me, but I didn't do anything about it. Meanwhile, it was 11:45 pm,
and we tried to order a few more mojitos so that we could at least
celebrate the New Years with them in hand, but the bar was a bit slow
and we never did receive them in time for the countdown. We rang in
New Years with an awesome performance of Santana by the house band,
numerous hugs, handshakes, kisses, and of course cigars :) Some
Aussie girls as well as a big group of French Canadian girls joined
our table, and we just enjoyed the cocktails once they arrived, the
cigars, the music, and sharing stories about Cuba with other
travellers. It was a truly awesome and special New Years Eve,
especially since it was such a small venue and we didn't really have
any expectations about it. Eventually the one couple wandered over to
our area, and we found out they were from Poland, and were just
having a holiday away from the family, but the woman kept flirting
with me even in front of her husband. It was a bit of a weird
situation, especially when she kept putting her hand on my back and
kept grabbing my hand, trying to hold while she was staring and
talking real close to me, as if she was going to kiss me right in
front of her husband. I asked her what the real situation was, as she
also wasn't wearing a ring, and she just kept telling me that “he's
a really nice guy but”...it was such a weird time. Eventually I had
to tell her that she should probably just focus on her marriage and
go home with her husband, as he wanted to go, but she wanted to know
where we were all going, as the place was starting to shut down.
Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on how you look at it, she
decided to head back with her husband to their place, and Fabio
decided he would go make a later appearance at the Angolan figure
with his friend, so they took off to that.
 |
| pre New Years mojitos! |
 |
| light em up, it's 2013 boys!! |
 |
| good people, good times |
 |
| our crew with a few Aussie girls |
 |
| me and Henri, plus the Aussie trying to creep in! |
 |
| great music, everyone's enjoying themselves :) |
 |
| Aussie girl and Polish girl and me having fun |
 |
| Diogo really having a good time :) |
 |
| cigars and great friends |
 |
| Fabio and the cute musician |
 |
| Brazil and Canada relations are at an all time high |
 |
| party party! |
 |
| mojitos, smiles all around |
 |
| happy times in 2013 |
The rest of us decided to go wander
around a bit, and we found a nightclub nearby, where we paid to get
in, bought one beer, and then they informed us they were closing
(thanks for not telling us that at the door when we paid cover
charge). On a fortunate note, we did meet two girls who were pretty
cool, one German and one Austrian girl, so we set out to make the
walk to the next open place, which so happened to be the Casa de
Musica Havana, which was about 2 blocks away from our hotel. We
walked there with the girls and several other random people, entered,
and found the place to be pretty busy, and with little to no
prostitutes. Unfortunately, that meant that it was filled with drunk
and creepy Cuban men ha ha! After grabbing a beer and chatting with
the German girl a bit (she was really really cute), we wandered out
to the dance floor, where she was surrounded immediately by about 5
other drunk guys, but she was fairly into me and kept close by. After
dancing a bit, she mentioned something in German to me, which I
didn't understand, but basically meant something along the lines of
being her New Years kiss, and I happily obliged. Of course this left
her one friend alone, and with all the creepy guys, she wasn't too
interested in that, so we had to keep saving her the whole time,
while Henrique and the others were off entertaining some Swedish
girls. It was kind of funny, as a new guy would approach the Austrian
girl, and the German girl would ask me for my input on whether the
guy was alright or creepy, and I would make the call and she would
run off to grab her or let her continue to dance with the guy...funny
times. After an hour or so of great music, a nice girl, and some fun
dancing, the place was closing down and it was 4:30 am so we wandered
outside. I thought we might head back to my hotel, but she was
staying with the Austrian girl and described her friend as a
“helpless child” and said that the girl wouldn't be able to find
her way back to the hotel, even if she wrote down the address, so she
would have to go home with her, oh well. We were all hanging out
chatting when Fabio and his buddy suddenly showed up, having returned
from the party which they described as “busy and fun, but very
weird”, as they walked in and pretty much the whole party just kind
of turned and looked at them, as they were the only non Angolans
there, so it was a bit of an interesting time. They had fun, but
still felt a bit out of place and ended up coming back to town about
an hour later.
Meanwhile, the strange Austrian girl
kept calling each of them Jesus because they had beards, and there
was one other guy who was standing around our group with a beard as
well, so she just kept yelling Jesus and pointing at each one of
them...it was a bit odd to say the least. Finally, her German friend
said she had to take her home, so we said goodbye and they were off.
We all just walked back to our hotels and said goodbye. I arrived
back at our place, and found that Henrique wasn't sleeping in the
room again, as he thought I might have company that night, so he went
to stay in Diogo's room. He woke me up about 6 hours later, as he was
on his way to the airport, and I had mentioned I might split a cab
with him, since I had no money, but after all the cigars and booze, I
really felt like I needed to sleep longer, so I said my goodbye and
went back to sleep for awhile. I was woken up by the maid not to long
after, telling me I had to check out, so I threw my things together
and figured I could go sleep in Diogo's room for a bit longer,
thinking he was staying there another night, but when I went to his
room, I found that he also had to check out, so we just did that and
wandered over to the hotel where the guys were. Everyone was up, but
looking a bit rough, so we just hung around the lobby for awhile,
before heading over to our favourite restaurant for lunch. After
another huge feast and a few gallons of water, we just wandered
around the town a bit longer, before heading back to the hotel where
we just hung out chatting and hanging out, while I arranged for a
taxi to take me to the airport.
 |
| one more shot of El Capitol |
 |
| more feasting |
It happened that Jamie and Diogo
needed to go to the bus station, and were going to head out to Santa
Ana that day, so they decided to hop into the cab and come for a
ride. I had to borrow another $20 from Jamie to cover my cab ride,
and had already borrowed nearly $300 from him over the past few days.
I had saved $25 of that for the departure tax I would need for the
airport, and had nothing else left. He asked if I wanted a bit more
for some water, food, or anything else along those lines, but I
figured I would be fine by just going straight to the airport and
getting on the plane. So I say my goodbyes, and hop in the taxi and
am off. I had flown into Terminal 2 on the way in, and my eticket
didn't mention what terminal I was flying out of, but I told the taxi
that I was going to Venezuela with the same airline, and that I
figured it would be leaving from Terminal 2, but he was insistent
that only flights to the US left from that terminal, and that I would
be leaving from Terminal 3. So he dropped me off there, I paid my
fare and arrived into the terminal.
I wandered around trying to find the
check in counter for my airline, and couldn't find it anywhere, nor
was the flight listed on any of the departure screens. Perplexed, I
went to the information counter, and the lady informed me that my
flight would be leaving from Terminal 2! She also mentioned that it
was over 2 kms away. At this point a bit of panic set in, since I had
$2 US in my bag, I had an hour and a half before my flight was
leaving, and I was over 2 kms away from the terminal! I asked outside
if any taxis would take me for $2, pleaded my case in broken Spanish,
and none of them would do it, they said only for $10!! I told them to
screw off and started walking, and ended up near some hotel place and
asked how much further to walk, what direction, etc. And the guy
there said they could find me a ride to the terminal for $2, so they
took me out to the main highway area and flagged people down, but no
one would take the US dollars!! So after about 10 minutes of standing
there, not really knowing what was going on, I realized I had an hour
and 15 minutes to go before my flight left, and figured if I didn't
check in within the hour window, I would be missing my flight, be
stuck in the airport with no money, and miss my subsequent flight to
Cartagena the next morning, shit! So I started running with all my
bags along the highway, throwing out my thumb hoping someone would
pick me up. A horse drawn cart rolled by and the guys asked where I
was going and I told them to the Terminal and that I would give them
$2 but they laughed at me and said no way, American currency was
useless to them, and went on their way! So I kept running and got
near the terminal and realized it was fenced all the way until the
entrance, and I had about 4 minutes to check in. I figured if I ran
all the way to the entrance, I might not make it, so I threw my bags
over the fence and climbed over, much to the interest of passing by
cars!
I got to the top of the fence, and
while trying to dismount, I cut open my hand and foot, but continued
on. I arrived at the check in counter exactly one hour before
departure, sweating and bleeding profusely, and because of my
dehydrated state, my legs started to cramp up as well! I was able to
check in but was so dehydrated, and fortunately someone had left a
mostly full water bottle at the counter, and having no shame, I
grabbed that and finished it all off. I arrived at the border
control, and the lady in there saw me all sweaty and bloody and asked
if I was ill, but I told her the story about the taxi taking me to
the wrong terminal, and she just shook her head and laughed. I
cleared customs, and was on my flight shortly thereafter, having
fully loved Cuba, even though I had numerous troubles. It was such an
amazing experience, and I would love to spend more time in the
country, as the people and the culture make it an absolutely
incredible place to visit. I now highly recommend Cuba to anyone I
meet, don't think about it, just get your ass there asap!
 |
| Bleeding, sweating, dehydrated, unimpressed about nearly missing my flight...but still alive :) |
I'm pretty far behind now on blogging,
but will try and catch up...Colombia is next, until next time.
Rye
