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Published: January 18th 2009
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I woke about 0700 and made my usual assortment of random morning noises and Jo didn’t stir. I thought it best to leave her alone until breakfast at 0800. She did get up but pretty much just stared at her food before returning to bed. I went to the main street to buy bus tickets to Havana (CUC12) but was stopped in the street on the way - “Amigo - Amigo Fuckoff” - I turned around and recognised one of the blokes that had tailed Jo and the girls home. To my surprise he immediately apologised for the noise and shook my hand - No problemo. I bumped into Juan again and we dropped in on the newly awoken girls for an hour or so swapping emails and travel stories as is customary amongst budget travellers.
I finally woke Jo at 1130 and we packed up ready for the 1400 bus before Juan joined us to go back to the main street to see the melee that was the incoming bus from Havana. Juan had also managed to find some antacids to give to Mariano who was already waiting for his new amigos to disembark. The two other blokes from the previous night found us and also apologised for their behaviour. Juan took some photos of the tout scrum before we went back to the casa to say goodbye to Miriam and Mariano - we had only stayed for two nights but it was rather a sad scene - they had been so good to us. Travellers - by definition - must travel and we had to leave and anyway, we had a 30 minute window in Havana to find an ATM and get on the overnight bus to Santiago de Cuba.
We arrived in Havana at 1730 and jumped straight on a minibus to Verdado where there were ATMs. As Jo’s card hadn’t worked at the airport we were nervous and praying for success. Juan wrote where he was staying on a piece of paper and told us to drop in if we had any trouble.
The card didn’t work. We were in Havana after dark with just over CUC30 to our names and no access to funds. We made the decision to spend some of our remaining money transferring money to my visa via the internet so we walked 1km to the Hotel Nacional where the 20 minute internet session cost CUC4. Next stop was to see Nicolas to find out if he knew where we could stay but unfortunately his casa was a good 3km away and with dwindling funds we had to walk backpacks and all. Nicolas was out when we arrived but his daughter assured us that he would be able to help and told us to get some dinner, suggesting a cheap restaurant a few blocks away. As luck would have it Nicolas and his wife saw us in the street and said “You should be in Santiago de Cuba!!” Mariano had forgotten to tell us - or maybe it was lost in translation - that someone was going to meet us at the bus station at 0600 the following morning. We got back to the casa and Nicolas explained the situation via phone to his friend in Santiago de Cuba, picked up his car from a lockup a block away and dropped us at the casa of his in-laws close to Verdado. Just another example of great Cuban hospitality. We arrived at 2100 hungry and weary but pleased to have a roof over our heads. Dinner was a microwaved pizza at the poorly named “El Rapido” fast food joint and we were home and asleep by 2230.
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