So, Cuba....!
We had plans to get out of Havana and check some of the regional towns and cities, particularly on the south coast of the island. But, things aren't that simple over here.
We should have suspected things wouldn't happen normally after we spent 90 minutes in a line to change money at the airport with only about 6 other people in front of us.
This was reinforced when we found that the few ATMs that we found would not give us any money and we had to spend another 90 minutes in the bank queue to withdraw some cash from a teller only to be told that I needed my passport and they close at 3:30 and I should perhaps come back tomorrow.
To be fair, the bank staff we quite busy, strutting back and forth across the lobby like models on a catwalk, complete with poses and lookbacks. We actually felt a little bit guilty for disturbing their day.
The shops have very little on the shelves, except rum. They have lots of rum and people start drinking it quite early in the day. If you find a shop with bottled water, it's a good idea to stock up. Or drink rum.
As far as I can tell, the national sport is egg tray carrying with hundreds participating daily in the streets. Other favourite pastimes are waiting in queues and loitering around WIFI hotspots.
Regardless of what they are doing, the most important thing is to look good doing it. They love shaking hands and love starting the handshake with a elaborate hand slap which involves an impressive backswing. Each handshake is immediately followed by a quick check of their hair and any necessary sunglass adjustment in order to maintain maximum coolness.
While this commitment to radness can provide many hours of entertaining people watching, it can also be used against them. If you want to avoid the touts, you just have to walk at a speed that is a little bit faster than a cool swagger and they are unable to keep up.
Nevertheless, we had booked a hotel room for 4 nights, and that should be long enough for resourceful people like us to organise the remaining 10 days in Cuba....or you would think. All travel seems to be through the only travel company in the country and seemed to be disproportionally expensive.
Hmmmmmmm..........!
Looking at the funds available to us and the remaining time left in Cuba, we could see a possible problem forming. Back to the hotel to discuss.
We're generally not too picky with our hotels but, I'm pretty sure that there was something living in our bathroom sink drain that scurried away whenever I looked down. We both had to fix the toilet cistern after every flush and some days we had bath mats and some days we had towels.
At least we had rum.
We came to a decision.
We would try and change our flights and fly out to Toronto a week early. We managed to purchase an Internet card by pretending to be guests of a different hotel and logged onto Air Canada but were unable to complete the booking process. After a series of bum steers we located an Air Canada office but by then it was mid afternoon and it was well closed. We managed to get to the office the next day during the 2/12 hours it was open and were startled to find that there was no queue to stand in. We approached the desk with uncertainty as nothing so far had been this straight forward, and explained what we wanted to do. The agent frowned and asked us why we could possibly want to leave the island early and we explained that we were short of funds and would probably run out if we stayed the entire 2 weeks. He banged the keyboard, frowning and muttering to himself. A few minutes later, he handed us a sheet of paper that looked like it had come out of a 1980 telex machine, and said "it's done!"
We looked dubiously at the piece of paper then asked if it was all we needed. The agent looked a little put out at us for not believing him answering "of course!" We enquired about the flight change fee to which he said that he would not charge it.
This was strange! This had been the easiest thing we had done in Cuba and we had been successfull. Or had we??? We studied the piece of paper at length, looked at each other, shrugged our shoulders and left the office.
We booked another couple of nights in old Havana and started to relax and enjoy the city now that we sealed our decision. We explored the old city and its plazas and cathedrals. Took a city tour in a 1953 Chevrolet, jumped on the top deck tour bus, checked out he Hemmingway haunts, stopping regularly for Cuba Libres and Mojitos.
Friday came around quite quickly and we had to leave.
Our taxi to the airport was fuelled from a plastic container in the boot filled with ethanol. Our concern was equally divided between dying in a rear ended induced fireball or being asphyxiated by the fumes.
Arrived at the airport elated with red, running eyes through tunnel vision in a ethanol vapour haze. To find check in not yet open. We waited. Waited....... Finally the check in opened around 2 hours before the flight but nothing happened. It took 40 minutes to process the first passenger. At this stage the ethanol was starting to wear off and we were becoming a little concerned. The line finally started moving and eventually it was our turn. We nervously presented our piece of telex paper to the check in clerk. She pouted, flicked her hair, completed a smouldering lookback and, to our amazement, handed us our boarding passes.
Yay! Rums in the departure lounge!
