Unfortunately the red ferry, for which I had bought a return ticket on the way to this island was not going because the captain was missing - ro something like that... I didn't really understand what they were saying.
I had to buy a ticket for the blue ferry so, Thank god for ferry redundancy!
Soon we were all on our 30 minute crossing to Chiquila. At the ticket booth of the red ferry on the mainland I got a refund of 90 peso (180 peso return) so all was good again.
The bus that was going to take me to Cancun looked very local and stopped at all the villages along the way. The way this was going I thought it was going to take a lot longer than the promised three hours to Cancun. Additionally, in one of the villages we had to stop because a bus, going the other direction (towards Chiquila) had broken down, blocking the entire road in a little village. It looked like the front axle of the bus was broken. It took a bit back and forth for our bus (after the driver had a bit of a chat with his friend of the broken bus) to turn into side road and pass through the village on a different route.
Despite all these events we made it to the ADO bus terminal in Cancun by 9am and soon after I got on the bus to the Airport and was in the terminal by 10am. I'm sure the snoring mexicans were still asleep...
This did not really give me any advantage though, since my flight was only at 3 pm, so I could have taken the 7 o'clock ferry. But hey, better safe than sorry, especially since I still hadn't had my Visa for Cuba.
I had to wait until about 11am until the Cuban Visa counter was going to open, and I was the first customer to be served at the Cubana Airlines Stand today.
If you remember, in Sydney I was chasing the Cuban Consulate to get my Visa sorted ages before, but after some reading in "unofficial" travel blogs and forums it seemed that you can just get it at the Cubana Airline counter before you check in. It felt a bit risky, in case no one was there, or the stories on the internet were all made up for some reason, but it worked. So, now there were only 4 more hours left, that I killed with writing my blog a bit
When it was finally time to check in I was surprised to be charged another 350 peso just to leave
Mexico but, then my backpack was checked in and I went through the security check and was on the way to my last new country on my trip of a lifetime.
I have heard and seen so many good thing about travelling in Cuba: Was it going to be a trip back in time?
I was quite excited to be going to Cuba now and was happy I had saved this more unusual destination for the end of my trip while I saw the majority of the people boarding their flights back home from their 2 weeks all-inclusive holidays in the Party hotels of Cancun.
All my Peso were gone now, just had a few coins left, so I had to pay my first meal of the day with Credit Card at Johnny Rockets (the US equivalent of Eddie Rockets). - One last American Meal before I shall be entering Marxist country - and it didn't even taste that good!
Now I was on the plane to Cuba and despite all the excitement fell asleep just after takeoff. It's not a long flight and soon we were descending over the crops fields just outside of Havana.
The terminal of the Aeropuerto Internacinal Jose Marti was not very different from some older airports I had seen, and certainly more futuristic than the one in Kathmandu. Similar to Kathmandu, were the luggage belts though, or rather what was on the, but here it was even more extreme... nearly everything that needs to be imported, (which is pretty much anything, aside from crops, cigars and rum) was imported by the people who can afford to take flight out of the country, not import companies on Cargo planes (well, to be honest maybe that happens as well). There were all sorts of things that appeared out of the hole in wall of the luggage hall: tyres, kitchen appliances, TVs, Fans, large boxes of all kinds of stuff... everything that you can not officially buy in Cuba but people want to have.
It was a great start into what lay ahead, I thought, got my bag and went through immigration, where I was greeted with a friendly smile. Now I was in Cuba.
The Taxi from 25 CUC (of course controlled by the government) from the Airport to town. I met some Spanish Guys in the queue for the Money excange (1 CUC = 1 USD) and decided to join forces, but all that got us was that I had to only pay 20 CUC instead of 25 in a taxi alone. It was a Kia.
The drive to town was worth the money though: we saw many old cars, scruffy looking buildings, people on the fields and lots of socialist propaganda painted on walls. All this was soaked up through an open window with a warm Caribbean breeze coming in. It was a great feeling to be here...
Somewhere in central Havana, the driver dropped of the two guys and continued to my place. My Casa Particular - these are the Guest houses here in Cuba, all government controlled and priced (30 CUC per night in Havana, 25 CUC in the country side).
Alex's apartment was located on the Avenida Paseo, a wide boulevard in an area that looked quite well, compared to the place we dropped off the Spanish guys. The place was nice, clean and I had a room all to my self. Alex himself was very friendly and spoke good English, so we had a chat about my travel and Cuba over a little cup of Cuban Coffee. He apologized that he had to put me into a different room than he originally planned.
The apartment had a big TV living room, an enclosed balcony and even a parrot.
Alex himself was very friendly and spoke good English, so we had a chat about my travel and Cuba over a little cup of Cuban Coffee - we were also joined by his other guests, a nice couple from Detroit with two kids (5 and 8 years - who says you can't bring young kids on trips like these?).
Now it was time to find some food - nearly 10 pm already. I went down to the sea, just 3 or 4 blocks and asked in the big Melia Cohiba Hotel for an ATM, but they didn't have one.
So I walked a little along the water front towards Vadedo, which supposed to be an old, authentic Havana neighbourhood.
I went into a place which looked more like a club than a bar and I was not in the mood to sit down here on my own to eat, so I went next door into a sports bar. Most of the people in here were Cubans (by the looks of it) but there were also some expats and tourists. I was surprised to see Jameson and Johnny Walker on the shelf. They even had Coke... but it was produced in Mexico, so it was not a US American Product.
I had a Medionoche sandwich - a famous Latin American sandwich and a beer for 7 CUC. So not particularly cheap, considering the average salary is about 20 CUC - in a Month. But then again, it was not the average people that were eating and drinking here.
The food was good and relatively cheap. On the way back to my apartment I noticed that the street lights were all LED lights.
Back at the the Apartment talked a little more with Alex and gave him one of my Korean Tea Bags, and had one myself.
I wasn't really sure what to do or where to go now, so I watched Odds against tomorrow on my laptop in my room and had a relaxed evening.
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