Cuban Queues - Holiday within a Holiday - 25 Apr 2003
Take me to Cuba. Please!!!!!!
In the air at last
No one has nothing to declare. Customary Hassles
At least the car isnít a hassle
Vouchers, what vouchers?
Hotel Cuba ñ you canít check in but you can leave when you want
OK, so the car is a hassle, too
Tight wads that we are and the flight being at 6 in the morning (minus three hours for check in minus half hour for taxi ride minus a bit more for usual hassles meant that we wouldnít get much sleep) we decided to spend the night in quiet contemplation at the airport. It also meant we could save wonga by sharing a taxi out to the airport with a charming Dutch chap who was staying at the same hotel. Suffice to say Lima airport is not an exciting place to spend an evening never mind a night.
Our position at the head of the queue was guaranteed and we were confident about collecting our tickets and having the best non-reserved seats on the flight. When the call to check in came we shot down to queue. There was a guy shambling around behind the counters wiping sleep from his eyes. As nothing else was happening I pre empted and strode up to the desk to enquire where we could pick up our tickets. The lad nipped in the back and returned briskly to tell us that we just checked in as usual and that our tickets were ready for us. Brilliant.
All was not so simple for the girl who checked us in. Without saying a word to us, she conspired with her colleagues and, with much shaking of heads and such, disappeared into the back office. The other passengers were processed in quick time and we started to worry that it wasnít going to happen. Eventually she came back to us with a couple of boarding passes printed off in our names. Sorted. But she refused to hand over the tickets and as they still had our passports we waited patiently.
There followed an hour of debate turning to argument, back through debate to unwilling concession on our part on condition of a disclaiming letter from the airline. It all boiled down to internet practices and a cyber culture lag in Peru.
What it was was that the guy behind the counter (the boss!) asserted that we had not paid for the ticket as it is impossible to charge anyone with a bank account in Central or South America without a signature to support the payment. Thus it was company policy that we must sign a completed credit card slip to the full value of the tickets or he would not let us on the flight. Our print out of a bank statement showing the money being drawn 10 days previously counted for nowt. What does one do in a case like this? If you donít concede, you donít fly. I signed but with a rider that we both made statements on a letter about our respective positions regards payment all signed and copied and all that sort of stuff. We parted company on poor terms as I reiterated that if he drew on the credit slip there would be major repercussions. Go on, Pat, like what?
There were a couple of characters on our flight. The first was a gringo with a grungy demeanour. On the flights he squatted in his seat and begged buns off his fellow travellers, to the extent that the steward ended up tossing him uneaten buns to satisfy his craving. Crouched in his seat, springing his arm out to catch buns as they were thrown at him, he reminded me of an elephant at the zoo.
The second was a rather camp bloke dressed in rather expensive looking, orange shirt, white trousers and metallic silver designer trainers, who appeared to be the toyboy for a portly, overly made up rich lady in her 50s. They were a wonderful pair for people watching, full of funny little mannerisms.
Everything went smoothly until Cuba.
No one has nothing to declare. Customary Hassles
Duty free in Panama had been a major disappointment. Weíd hoped to look at the latest in camera stuff on the way through as Panama has the reputation of being the duty free zone in the Americas. Actually they were selling lots of outdated models of stuff at very ordinary prices. Oh well. Nothing else of much interest happened on the flights other than the performance of the filthy gringo backpacker. I couldnít decide whether I admired his thrift and green principles in reducing waste or deplored the image that he might have been trying to give of a hard up traveller on his way to his spiritual home with Fidel. Hard to convince someone youíre hard up when youíre flying.
We travel light as much as possible. Hard to do otherwise when you have few belongings. Donít worry, Iím not pleading poverty, now, itís just that we canít take much because of space constraints on the bike. As with most of the other plans for this trip made at short notice weíd failed to secure the hire of a car and so we decided that Hippy would wait for the bag and that Iíd nip through to the arrivals hall where the car hire desks were promised to be so that I could start negotiations before the hordes came through.
ìNot so fast sonnyî or words to that effect. I was heading for the green channel when I was accosted and sent back to fill in a customs form. So I filled it in to indicate that I had nothing to declare and resumed my quest to pass through the nothing to declare channel. No chance. ìGo back to that windowî. I went back, greeted and shrugged at the girl behind the window asking what was wanted. She looked nonplussed and so I handed over everything that I had: customs form, passport, tickets etc. She waved me back to my friend again. He indicated the same corner of the arrivals area as before but offered no explanation.
Meanwhile, I waited for the bags and people watched. I had much to entertain me. The camp guy and his partner seemed to be collecting half the luggage appearing on the carousal. But the best was yet to come! Eagerly awaiting our rucksack my eyes flitted back and forth to the point where the bags unceremoniously slide onto the carousel. There was aloud yelp and I turned to see a large dog carrier slide out onto the belt. It came down with such force that it rocked as it collided with the edge. A very flustered chap in silver designer trainers hurriedly minced his way to the carousal and hoisted the beast surprisingly manfully to the pile of belongings, whispering calming words of ìThere, there babykinsî, to said dog.
Seconds later, there was another bump, whimper and collection
And anotherÖ.
And anotherÖ..
AnotherÖ
AnotherÖ
AnotherÖ
Dog baskets on top of dog baskets, with yapping mutts in them. One particularly excitable little dog was leaping around so much that the box was rocking back and forth precariously on top of a rather calmer relative. Mr Camp had his work cut out going to each in turn to try and calm them down. There was the added complication that the airport customs staff were leading sniffer dogs around all of the luggage and this simply added to the caged animals hysterics and my entertainment.
Pat who had been asked to wait had now disappeared, I hoped through departures and not to something more serious. The people waiting for their gear had dwindled to about 5, Mr Camp and partner, me and a couple of other random tourists. Finally our rucksack appeared and I was freed from people watching.
At last, I was asked a series of questions and then sent through to the customs search area. The most difficult question had not been ìwhere are you stayingî but ìwhere is your documentation to prove it?î Trying to explain that we were going to pick it up at a hotel in Havana only confused the issue as they then wanted to know how long I was going to stay in Havana which, of course, I wasnít going to. The search was comparatively easy. The only tricky bits were trying to keep a straight face when the girl pulled out the inflatable globe and trying to explain that although Strepsils are indeed a drug, they were not a drug. Every last packet and bit and bob was opened and inspected. In a way, I was pleased to see the job being done properly for once instead of the stupid time wasting token efforts that we have been subjected to here and there.
At least the car isnít a hassle
I got out faster than anyone else due to the fact that I had only a tiny bag to search. That gave me a head start on the hire car counters and I worked my way along them trying to get the cheapest price possible. When at last one of them had an economy car available, I was pleased to find that their price was just about the same as quoted on the web. Hippy was added to the insurance for a quid a day ñ fair enough.
Then I waited for Hippy and waited and waitedÖWhen I approached a geezer at the gate to find out where she was, I was repeatedly told to bugger off. I managed to summon up the sentence to the effect that if he landed in England and his wife was kept back in the customs area he would probably be concerned, too. At that he let me look around the corner but there was still no sign of Hips. I waitedÖ
A rather nice customs chap approached me. It was clear that no one was going through without a thorough search and I was relieved that we were not being picked out as vagrants or some such. The nice man bullied some bloke out of his office to search our bag, because every other surface had fellow travellers belongings strewn on them. He was being most apologetic and explained that they had been told to search everyone and were trying to get the least suspicious through the system first ñ me included. They had had a tip off apparently that someone could be travelling through Cuba to the USA on a terrorist mission, and hence the security measures. I was pleasantly surprised that Cuba was going to such length to save USA some anguish when the US has hardly been friendly to them. They are still being crippled by US sanctions imposed on them.
It is at points like this that I wish that when I have to expose my underwear to strangers it was less worn, but at least they looked more embarrassed than me. It was even more embarrassing that in the humid air I could tell that a night in Lima airport had done nothing for my body odour that was now pervading the office. What is it about travellers rucksacks, that when you pack them it all fits in and when you try to stuff embarrassing items back in - in a hurry it simply will not go. I struggled, and squeezed and pushed and eventually it was all in after a fashion and I was released.
And so we were off into the centre of Havana to pick up the vouchers for our hotel which was 500 miles away down the other end of the island. The car hire folk omitted to give us a map and so we had to fork out 3 quid for a small single sheet of paper that covered the whole of Cuba.
It didnít really help with trying to find the office that we needed in town. We used the Scully method of city navigation. Head towards the sea and then guess whether to turn left or right. We actually got straight there.
Up in room 605 (the office of our booking agents) there was no sign of life. I banged on the door for a while and me with further silence. At reception I rang the room to no avail. No one at reception knew where the supposed company might be. I popped back to the car where Hippy had been baking for a while to discuss tactics. We were not keen on the idea of driving the length of the island to get turned away at the hotel and so plotted ways of coming by our voucher. The hotel did not have any internet facilities and so gaining further information through that avenue was not going to happen.
In the end, I asked some of the assorted folk down in the lobby who had tour operations if they had ever heard of the folk in room 605. Eventually one of them knew someone who knew someone and a great telephone chase was set up to find the cell number of our man. Quarter of an hour of calls later and Hector, for that was his name, agreed to towel down, for he was having a shower, and return to the hotel to sort us out.
I was so relieved that I offered the nice girl a drink from the bar. She went all coy and suggested that my wife would not be happy. I thought she meant about the innuendo but in fact she must have been referring to the price ñ 2 dollars for a standard sized can of coke. A pattern was emerging. Cuba is a rip off. Oh dear, here we go again [webmaster]
Hector arrived and apologised but pointed out that it was Saturday and he gives ëthe girlsí permission to go home once they have completed their tasks on a Saturday. Fair enough, but we did consider that doling out tickets to tired tourists did constitute one of their duties. Everything was looking good. We had a car, a voucher for our hotel, a road map and a full tank of petrol. But we were not wearing sunglasses.
The road map did not help too much when it came to finding the promised 8 lane superhighway that connects the West and East of Cuba. But the locals were incredibly friendly and helpful. None of the ìI wouldnít start from here if were youî mentality. No, it was more of a case of ìYou do a U turn up there and then go the wrong way down the slip roadî kind of thinking. I liked these guys.
Dark gathered around us as we hooned down the great Cuban folly of a motorway. Yes, there were 8 lanes ñ 4 on each side, but without road markings, with appalling surface and a distinct absence of other vehicles. This was obviously one of those fantastic communist ideas that was a little ill conceived. I think it was the railway crossings that really took the biscuit. No barriers, lights or bugger all. Imagine that on the M25! At a little stoppy place a chap offered us somewhere to stay for 10 dollars but not being quite up to speed on safety issues and stuff in Cuba we decided to give it a miss. Fighting off sleep we made it as far as Santa Clara. Hippy was not too keen on night driving as her night vision was not too good and we were both so knackered a stop was called for. The lack of lighting and any cats eyes, meant that in my tiredness I could not judge speed of oncoming vehicles or their direction. I knew that if I was behind the wheel it would be a liability.
Hotel Cuba ñ you canít check in but you can leave when you want
The hotel that had been recommended in Santa Clara was on the main square. We found it by following the stench of rum emanating from the drunkards that filled the square and swayed to the pumping music. The foyer of the hotel did not fill me with hope for a good nightís kip as the drunkards swaying on the square also swayed in and out of the lifts and presumably swayed in and out of all of the rooms in the place. When they asked us for 40 dollars for a room, I turned away to check out the 50 dollar options that might at least give us a nightís kip.
Weíd seen signs to the hotels on our way into town and so retraced our path through the swaying people. The hotel complex seemed quite nice. Clearly loads of other people thought so too because it was full. We were sent off in search of another hotel which eluded us. We were getting a bit of a kismet feeling about this town and so after taking a hotdog at the services we decided to carry on a little way and sleep in a side road somewhere.
When you need a quiet little side road away from habitation, do you think you can find one. We drove another 50km before you managed a lay-by, which seemed safe enough. The seats in our miniature little Daihatsu reclined completely, and to be honest we were tired enough to sleep anywhere. We sleep relatively well, with the companionship of a couple of persistent mosquitoes. At some point in the night I was awakened by the sound of a womanís voice singing beautifully into the night air. It was not loud or harsh, but gentle and a perfect accompaniment to the stillness of the night. Her voice became clearer as she came nearer to the car and died again into the distance as she walked on. I fought the urge to rise from my horizontal position to see her in person, as I was a feared that if she noticed our presence she may stop her ballad.
Apart from the whining of mosquitoes in my ear, I slept till dawn, when I noticed a rather bemused local on his bicycle looking into the car. He rode off nonchalantly when he realised that I had seen him, a little embarrassed that he had been caught out spying. I was enjoying the dark giving way to the light and waiting for Pat to awake in his own good time. I did just see the chap watching us as I awoke. It must have been the appearance of a bloke that sent him on his way.
OK, so the car is a hassle, too
We admit that we raided the chocolate we had brought for JP, to give us a little boost in the morning. I took over the driving and after about an hour I said to Pat and the car was making funny noises. He pooh-poohed me and said it was nothing. But it wasn¥t pulling right at all. 5 minutes later a van overtaking us pointing at the wheel. We had a flat!
No problem we have a spare...
We have a jack...
I was so pleased that Iíd insisted on these things when we picked the car up.
But the jack doesnít work...
The adjectives used by Pat to describe the hire company do not bear repeating. I think one of the adjectives he used earlier was cheap [webmaster]
We try to flag down another vehicle, to no avail.
Luckily we have pulled up by a little village.
There had to be someone who had a jack. There were several cars scattered around but none of them seemed to have owners. I detected a certain shyness in the village. People seemed to withdraw into their houses at the approach of the gringo. At last I came upon a lady made of sterner stuff who set about looking for the ìgatoî (why in Godís name they call a jack a cat I cannot say) in her manís car, then his truck, then the car again. No sign of it. By the side of the truck there were some old bits of scrap metal that I reckoned Iíd be able to lift the car up with.
I took them away and another obliging chap dogged my footsteps back to the car. Pretty fortunate really, as it needed a couple of blokes to lift the car and change the wheel. Predictably the spare was a bit on the flat side and was obviously suffering from a slow puncture. No matter, it would get us to the next ponchero. Strange how so many English words have been bastardised into the Spanish used in Cuba.
The poncheroís was quite an experience. He was working on a set of trucks when we arrived but gave us attention quite quickly. I was suspecting that he had seen the golden goose pull up on his forecourt. The tube in the punctured tyre was split completely for about 270 degrees of the tyre. Did he have a new tube? No. But he did have a tube with a dodgy valve so he took a section off our tube including the valve and glued it onto his tube. Dodgy stuff- just the kind of repair I like. It worked. Checking the spare revealed that the tyre was not fitted correctly. So he sorted that, too.
While all this was going on we were engaged in conversation in German by a truck driver who had worked in East Germany for a few years. We didnít manage much in that language other then to agree that our car was shit. Still, he doled out the fags and gave me a splash of the local unlabeled hooch (80 cents a bottle and bearable if a little fiery) not generally available to the tourist classes. All sorted for 2 dollars ñ I gave the man 3. He seemed pleased.
Generally, I was grateful that we had been travelling for so long, that all these minor problems we took in our stride. I did worry about your average tourist with no Spanish and a useless jack, and having to organise mending punctures in a foreign language.
We picked up a couple of hitch hikers for a while (see notes on Cuba, coming soon) which was handy as we seemed to go through a series of towns without road signs.
We were rather relieved to arrive in Guardalavaca (thatís watch over the cow, to you) without any further mishaps. We were just about ready for a holiday but just as we handed our voucher overÖNo, really, everything was all right at last and we settled into our all inclusive Cubra Librefest.
To top it all we arrived at our room and it was not ready, still dishevelled for the previous occupants. I smiled to myself, on a trip like this it would have been inappropriate to have our arrival run smoothly.
We were relocated and all was well, we met up with Trish and JP. We were on holiday.