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Published: September 3rd 2007
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After a big night out, our last night in Rio, and a lot of travel (approx 2-3hr flight to Buenos Aires, 7hr transit at BA Airport, approx 9hr flight to Cuba...) we arrived in Cuba excited about our Caribbean adventures. We were supposed to be heading to Jamaica from Cuba (yeah I know a wacky flight just to get to Jamaica, but worth it all the same). We handed our passports and plane tickets to an Air Cubana (or Cubano) attendant. She asked us to go wait in the lounge and she would be right back with our PASSPORTS etc... yes that's right she had all six of our most important documents (there were 6 of us traveling together, Amy, Guido, Junior, Denise, Aori and me). After a couple of hours we realised it wasn't long (about another hour) till our plane left and we still hadn't heard from the lady with our belongings. Guido and Junior got onto it... they said they didn't think there was enough room on the plane, it had been over booked. They asked us to wait a little longer. After about another 2hrs of sitting around and watching our plane fly off, we were told
the flight had been over booked (tho we booked it back in April) and the next flight to Jamaica wasn't until Thurs (this was in Sunday). As you can imagine we were ropable! We had been traveling for many hours, were tired/hungover/hungry/ and damn pissed off!
Anyways we finally left the airport and were taken to La Habana's (Havana) ritziest hotel and were put up there till Thurs. It was very luxurious and to top it our meals were all paid for. Though we were spoilt by this it wasn't really how we wanted to spend our time in Cuba. After much battle with Air Cubano we rebooked our flight for Thurs and demanded we be on 1st class! Guido and Amy were amazing, and thanks to their calm and friendly dispositions it all worked out and we were upgraded to 1st class, to and from Jamaica and also back to BA.
We headed to the beach to chill out in the sunshine! We drove in a typical old school taxi with an old Cuban! Loads of fun, and arrived at a beautiful beach jam packed with people! Junior was very excited when he managed to buy some
beers (for about 10cents) with local Cuban pesos (there are different currencies for locals and foreigners).
We decided to venture outside Habana and head to a town, Pinar del Rio. When we arrived we were hasseled by locals to come stay in their homestays, we met a lovely guy who owned a hostel and he informed us that we needed our passports (something we had left in the hotel in Habana) and if we were caught on the street without them we would be arrested! WHOOPS! So Amy and Guido had to drive 2hrs back to Habana to pick up our passports and then come rescue us at the hostel! Was a waste of a day but it wasn't worth the risk of being arrested in Cuba 😊
The next day we ventured further to the middle of nowhere and stayed with a lovely family . The place we stayed is a popular local destination on wkends and holidays tho when we were there it was pretty deserted! We relaxed by the beach (tho I lay under an ¨apparently¨ shaded tree all day as I didn't want to risk getting burnt... so much for that, by that afternoon
I looked like a lobster, OUCH!), ate delicious freshly caught fish, smoked freshly rolled Cuban cigars (made by the guy we were staying with, he told us all about them and how you can tell if they are fake etc), drank rum and coconut water out of freshly cut coconuts, got attacked by mosquitos, had a very funny encounter with a frog in the toilet (which involved 3 grown men trying to catch and set it free, along with random insects, the ¨men¨ (Guido, Junior and Aori) wouldn't let us turn the light out to sleep... very funny!)
On our way home the next day our taxi (Amy, Guido and me) hit a dog and wasn't really drivable. We were toed by the other taxi. Now the driving in Cuba is already crazy let alone being toed illegally... let me tell you this was an experience and one I never wish to endure again. We finally stopped at a car repair place and changed taxi's, tho I didn't really feel any safer with the driver going on average 160km all the way back to Habana!
When we returned to Cuba (after an amazing wk in Jamaica) we visited beaches,
experienced live music and salsa, were pick pocketed and bag snatched (long story, can't be bothered typing it all)... and basically left with a bad taste in our mouths! Well maybe I should just spk for myself. I left with a bad taste in my mouth.
We had some fun times/experiences in Cuba though I wouldn't rush back there!
SORRY IF THERE ARE SPELLING MISTAKES etc BUT I HAVE SPENT HOURS ON THIS COMPUTER PUTTING THESE BLOG ENTIRES TOGETHER AND QUITE FRANKLY CAN'T BE BOTHERED PROOF READING IT! 😊
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