Cartagena Take Two

Things were a little bit calmer this morning, though the heat was already quite intense. We walked outside the city walls for the first time to an area of town called Getsemani. We were already having a few issues with people stopping abruptly on the narrow sidewalks. We knew very well, however, that things could be much worse. We walked toward the Castillo de San Felipe, but as we crossed a bridge to get there, I was a bit concerned about the heat and being completely exposed without shade for an extended period of time, so I snapped a picture from a distance and we turned around. We took a different route back to the old town, passing some graffiti as we walked by. We did a little bit of shopping, but didn’t end up buying anything. Stores essentially had the same stuff from one place to the next, but not the key items we needed like . . .a pin for Nicole’s camera bag, or an ornament for our tree. Even good magnets were hard to come by. If you wanted a Panama hat, however, you need not look far.   

 We had lunch across the street from our hotel at a pizza place. We had hoped to snag one of the seats in the plaza, but an older man who looked like Dr. Hammond from Jurassic Park stole the last one. Some nerve. We ended up being the first to be sat indoors, but there was a balcony upstairs which worked out nicely because it eliminated the hawkers trying to sell us cigarettes and panama hats. After our pizzas, we regrouped at the hotel to formulate our next plan. We still needed to get aforementioned pins and ornaments and such, so I did a bit of research. We ended up going to a stretch of stalls at the Mercado de las Bovedas, which was an old military storehouse. It’s now about 20 “different” shops selling mostly the same stuff. We ended up getting a keychain of one of the colorfully-dressed fruit vendors which I will convert to an ornament.  I also ended up getting a Colombian national team soccer jersey because the price was right. It ended up being about $10, so I didn’t feel right trying to get a lower price any lower than that. Later on we found a flag pin for Nicole, but it really took some hunting.    

 I had made a dinner reservation for 630pm (when most restaurants just start opening for the night). I thought perhaps a reservation was needed since outdoor space is often limited, but it turns out it was most definitely not required. We were the first people there, and watched them physically open the restaurant and put out the signs and menus. I had picked this place because I wanted to try a local dish called Posta Negra Cartogena. It’s basically steak cooked in a sauce made out of Worcestershire sauce and Coca Cola amongst other things, so it’s a kind of tangy/sweet flavor served with plantains, and coconut rice. Unfortunately, the restaurant I had reserved told us that they were out. It had been a frustrating evening of running into people and nearly getting hit by cars, so we were in a bad place when we heard this news. I basically said there’s no point in even staying, so we up and left. We hunted around briefly. Another restaurant I remembered from my research ended up having a guard posted outside, blocking the entry. I took this to be not a great sign, and we continued elsewhere. As we neared our hotel, we passed the restaurant next to the place where we ate pizza for lunch. They had one seat outside, though it was an unusual setup. Because a group of twenty girls had showed up and wanted to eat at ONE table like the Last Supper, our table ended up being off by itself as if we were eating at a completely different restaurant, or had perhaps brought our own table.   

 To make matters worse for Nicole, she was alerted that due to previously mentioned group of twenty girls (who had all decided to order pizza, even though there was a pizza place next door), the wait for Nicole’s margherita pizza would take at least 45 minutes at best. The waitress suggested various salads and fish dishes, but I think she could sense the fear in Nicole’s eyes. She then brought Nicole with her to order a pizza from the neighboring restaurant. As it turned out, I got my posta negra a while after Nicole received her pizza, but it was a delightful dish that was topped off with some kind of banana dessert. It was perhaps the closest thing we will have to any authentic in Cartagena.

    We went back to our hotel and sat on the rooftop, away from the chaos all around us as car horns and salsa music from different bars wafted into our ears to create a kind of dissonance that pretty accurately sums up lively and wild Cartagena.   

Feliz año nuevo!

After a Christmas in New Jersey and a followup visit to Houston for the holidays, we elected to continue our adventures down to Colombia. From Houston, it’s a short five-ish hour flight to Bogotà. Unfortunately for us, there was a two hour delay on our New Year’s Eve flight due to some sort of runway restrictions down at El Dorado Airport. This would mean that we would arrive in 2020 as opposed to having a little buffer back in 2019 to get through customs and to our hotel for a chance to get some much needed rest. As it turned out, we touched down with about five minutes to spare and were pulling up to the gate when the flight attendants announced that it was now 2020. We were fortunate to have gotten business class seats, so we were off the plane in short order. As we walked the long length of the terminal toward customs, we saw fireworks erupting all along the horizon. A group of about twenty rampers were watching it as well and eventually turned and looked at me and waved. Welcome to 2020.  

 We breezed through customs and took an Uber down the empty roads to our hotel near the old town, about twenty minutes away. Some shady looking characters immediately ran up to the car when we got out hoping for some change, but Nicole and I are millennials and didn’t have any actual cash to give anyway. To heighten the tension, our hotel door was locked and nobody was there to let us in. After a minute, a security guard at the adjoining building was able to get a hold of the hotel to let us in. For having touched down around midnight, it was now about 1am, which wasn’t too shabby. We settled in for the night. 

We were awoken the following morning by heat consuming us. You see, while it was really only about 50 degrees outside, the altitude and the shade’s absorption of heat made it feel like 80 in the room. We had an early start to the day, just to get out. In spite of our phones telling us it was only 58, we didn’t need our jackets while walking outside. We explored a neighborhood known as La Candelaria. The streets were nearly deserted. We eventually reached Plaza Bolívar, where we encountered more people, but they were far outnumbered by pigeons. Virtually nothing was open at this hour, so there wasn’t a whole lot to see. We then caught an Uber to take us up the hill to where we thought we would catch a cable car or funicular to the top of Monserrate Hill. Apparently a lot of other people had the same idea, and it looked like a line for a ride at Disneyland so we simply walked down the hill back toward our hotel. Since we had pretty much exhausted our to-do list for Bogotà, we decided to take an earlier flight to Cartagena. A little while later, we found ourselves back at the airport, but this time in the domestic terminal.   

 Though we were able to depart earlier, it only saved us maybe 40 minutes in the end, as it was a very long taxi for departure. We will take what we can get. Our hotel in Cartagena is also in the old walled area of the city. It was very quickly apparent that this is very different than Bogotà. It is quite busy and there are a lot of tourists. After checking in, we walked around to explore. It was a bit overwhelming. It has similarities to Casco Viejo in Panama City, but it’s not as . . .nice. It’s perhaps a little too wild for our tastes, and very difficult to walk. Gaggles of tourists stop abruptly as they try to figure out where they’re going or pausing for a dramatic selfie. We would have to jump off the narrow sidewalks into the street to avoid them only to be almost run over by a taxi or horse-drawn carriage, which are surprisingly frequent. I didn’t even want to stop for pictures because everyone behind me would surely run me over.  

 It’s like a cross between Panama City, Ubud in Bali, and New Orleans — it’s a nice looking neighborhood with the colonial architecture, but it caters to a clientele and inauthenticity that is a bit of a turnoff. We had dinner at a place called, “Beer Lovers.” This was a nice chance to escape the crowds on the street and enjoy some local brews. Nicole had a red ale and I had a coffee stout, not standard Caribbean beers, or tropical beers, but delicioso nonetheless. We also got a couple beers and some snacks to go because they were so yummy and we were now just seeking ways to avoid the crowded streets. We figured we would enjoy the beers on the roof of our hotel. Perhaps I am being unfairly negative toward the poor walled city of Cartagena, but when you’re spoiled like we are, you have a lot to compare it to. It does appear that everyone else is enjoying themselves, so take that as you will. Tomorrow is a new day, and maybe things will be different when it’s not a holiday. Fingers crossed.

St Maarten

When I was in middle-school, I would spend a good portion of my time on the family computer looking at websites that had high-resolution photos of airplanes. At that time, we only had dialup internet, so spending a “good amount of time” on the internet to look at high-res photos was an understatement. I would frequent the Editor’s Choice section of these sites to find the most eye-catching and impressive shots. There was one location that kept showing up again and again — Princess Juliana International Airport in Sint Maarten. Aircraft as large as 747s were frozen in time, hovering above the turquoise waters below while beach goers waved maniacally in the foreground. For a nerd like me, this place seemed like paradise.

  It was about 20 years ago that I approached my parents about going to St Maarten. We did not have airline benefits, so I was informed that such a trip would not be possible. To be fair, I had some pretty outlandish requests at that age that ranged from places like Midway Atoll to a Bollywood film set. Nevertheless, I was a little upset that my family wasn’t game for crafting an entire trip around plane spotting. Now that I’m living the #nonrevlife, things have changed a bit. I fly to Florida from LA to go to the dentist, so planning a trip to go watch airplanes didn’t seem as crazy anymore.

  We arrived early in the day and suspected we would not be able to check-in to our hotel right away, so we killed time at Maho Beach, the one at the approach end of the runway. It was more wild than I had imagined. Many people were wearing wristbands, so I suspect there might have been a few cruise ships that had docked earlier that morning. It was difficult to find a spot on the beach, so my (very supportive) wife and I found an alcove underneath the very popular Sunset Bar, where we could afford at least a little personal space away from the nearby chaos. We were able to get a few pictures of some arriving aircraft, but the prospect of getting closer to the runway centerline seemed very daunting. I have never seen a beach so crowded in my life. We left after a couple hours (a decent amount of time all things considered) to drive to Oyster Bay near the French border to relax and recover.

 The island of St Maarten (or St Martin if you prefer) is split into two partitions - one Dutch, one French, though no passport is needed to pass between the two. It was during our drive away from the airport where we began to see a very different island. Whereas Maho Beach had been a bit of a party scene, it did not take long to see buildings without roofs or boats still lying on their sides, half-submerged into the turquoise waters of the nearby marina. Hurricane Irma devastated the Caribbean in September of 2017, and the road to recovery has been arduous in St Maarten. Our hotel in Oyster Bay had reopened less than a year earlier. The Westin down the road was still closed, but it was faring better than many of the other hotels. We didn’t know so at the time, but the beach at Oyster Bay was once a lively, built-up little section of coastline. Now it is a thin strip of sand where just the two of us sat on lounge chairs with our only company being an iguana and a construction crew moving dirt in the distance. Many hotels have been completely razed or are literal shells of their former glory.

 It was a very sobering experience. Over the next couple days, we drove our car around both partitions of the island. I was surprised just how “French” the French side was. I walked into a patisserie in the small town of Orléans and was greeted by a friendly, “Bonjour, Bienvenue!” I hadn’t expected to actually hear french on this island, but the needs of my stomach have ensured that my knowledge of pastries and other foods has not been lost in my vocabulary of French words. I ordered a chausson aux pommes (basically an apple turnover) and enjoyed its flaky goodness before we continued our exploration of the island. 

 Having not seen St Maarten prior to the hurricane, we were often left guessing what it would have once looked like. Nowhere was there such a dramatic change as Grand Case Beach. We parked our car across the street from some dumpsters where workers were tossing debris from buildings that were once shops or boutique hotels. It was fascinating to look in one direction and see the pristine waters of the Caribbean only to turn around and see the collapsing facade of a once grand building. We did also return to Maho Beach to watch the afternoon arrivals including an A340 inbound from Paris. The beach was much more open this time, and the cruise ship crowd was gone. This made the experience much more relaxing with the sounds of the waves, the birds, and the soothing symphony of twin turbofans producing 40,000 lbs of thrust lulling us (or perhaps just me) into a zen-like state.

 Perhaps our two dramatically different experiences at Maho Beach are a lesson in travel. You cannot truly judge a place by just one visit. Given how much this island has had to endure, it is unfair to judge it by its current “work-in-progress” state. Even the airport itself is a temporary structure within the framework of the original terminal. It may not be perfect, but it’s functional. In spite of everything that has happened, the people of St Maarten are extremely friendly, helpful, and genuine whether they be on the Dutch or French side. Paradise has not been lost. You just have to look in the right direction.    

Surprisingly No Rain Today

We were expecting today to to be a complete washout, so when we woke up to the natural light seeping in through the window around 7:30 this morning, we bounced out of bed and went out to take advantage of it. We weren't sure if it would soon storm again or not, so we figured every minute was precious. We walked down to the old pier again, since Nicole didn't have her nice camera last time. While the water is always a nice color, the pickings are slim for actual photogenic scenery since it's just you know . . . a beach.

After returning to our hotel, we had breakfast and went for a swim. Sea life is very sparse since there's no reef, but I did spot a crab and a starfish, as you see here. After spending a decent amount of time at the beach, where Nicole finished her thriller novel and I continued reading a thriller of my own -- the trials and tribulations of an American contract pilot flying in China. Scary stuff! After beach time, we walked toward the "town" to do some shopping. Almost everything was closed. Many had signs that said, "Reopening in November." Apparently we are here in the offseason. I got a deal on our hotel (relatively speaking) since it normally goes for well over $300 a night.

And that's the crazy thing about these islands. Who has the money to afford places like this during the "on" season? We walked through a few other resorts which go from $600-$800/nt (during offseason). And yes, they look really nice, but I'm not sure how one can really justify that price in exchange for some more topiaries and a nicer pool. But I suppose some folks like to go big or go home when they go on vacation. Now the bizarre complaints to staff about the rain make a bit more sense. I can picture some big wig from New Jersey yelling, "I just paid $800 a night for this! Can't you make the rain go away?!?!"

We thought we might find an alternate place to get lunch, but everything was closed. We ended up reversing course back to a place called Seven Stars, the same resort we had lunch at a few days ago. If we're going to pay $50 for lunch, we better at least get friendly service. I suggested a boycott of our hotel's restaurant/bar since they always seem to either lie or have attitude. After lunch, we discovered that that the Seven Stars had a bocce ball court and nobody really enforces or restricts access to such things (take that $500/nt hotel!). Nicole, being the Italian that she is, was drawn to it like a bee to a flower. Next I knew we were tossing large balls toward a small ball. A simple game, indeed. The sun was still shining, so now we proceeded back to our hotel and decided to check out a standup paddle board. Neither of us have ever done standup paddle boarding before despite it being quite popular in our area. And you can't beat free, so it was the perfect time to try it out. The people who checked it out before us were struggling, so we thought perhaps it was more difficult than it appeared.

Now not to toot our horns, but both Nicole and I were able to stand up immediately without incident. Perhaps our backgrounds in skating or surfing helped. It was a fairly relaxing activity as well, though I couldn't really get anywhere fast. You are sort at the mercy of the waves/current. I was trying to take pictures of Nicole doing it and she just sort of sailed away to the west in search of new trade routes or something. Tomorrow we face the daunting task of flying American Airlines through Miami to get back to LA. Wish us luck.

Well at Least We Have Yesterday . . .

Today was overcast and rainy the entire day. You can't win them all, though. We were fortunate to have some unexpected sun throughout most of yesterday, so I suppose it's fair. It wasn't particularly rainy in the morning -- just very grey, so we borrowed some bikes from the hotel and rode over to the eastern edge of the island which took less than 15 minutes. We locked the bikes up at a resort nearby and walked around. The place was virtually deserted. We bought a few food items at a nearby market and biked back to our place. We went to the beach (also deserted as you see here).

We did some reading and crosswords even as the rain began to pound down hard. We had an umbrella open over our loungers, so it really made no difference to us. Eventually the wind started pushing the rain into us despite the umbrella, so we sprinted back to our room where we continued our reading and I did one of my training modules for the airline until it was time for dinner. With some bagels and a can of soup on deck, we thought we'd try the happy hour downstairs believing that they had 2-for-1 appetizers and drinks. When we went down, we inquired to confirm that this applied to appetizers and the man nodded.

But as seems to be the case everywhere on this island, people like to say what they think we want to hear until we get the bill and feel like we've been swindled realizing that this 2-for-1 appetizers deal is nonexistent. So we ended up paying $40 for a couple appetizers, a beer, and a bottle of water. We knew the island was going to be expensive before we got here since it's like the playground for A-list celebrities. (After all, we are Bricole, everyone's favorite celebrity couple, but even we try to live like the commoners to keep ourselves grounded). Oh well. It is what it is. It looks like tomorrow we will have that soup and bagel after all.

First Full Day on Turks . . .and Caicos Too

Fully expecting to wake up to rain, we were surprised to find the sun poking through some cloud cover. After a breakfast of bagels and donuts purchased from the grocery store, we went out to the beach in front of the hotel. After a bit we decided to go into the water. It was a comfortable temperature. Not really much in terms of sea life to look at with the exception of an occasional lost fish, but it was nice and clear. We were at the beach for a while, but for whatever reason, my nose started draining uncontrollably from the salt water, so we went back in to take care of me.

After regrouping, and blowing my schnoz a few times, we set forth again to explore the other areas down the beach from our hotel. We had walked about a mile down the beach when I turned around and pointed to rain in the distance that appeared to be about two miles away. I told Nicole we should find a place to eat lunch or get out of the rain should it strike. I assumed we had a few minutes, but I barely finished my sentence when it started pouring. An employee at the nearby resort was sprinting to gather up towels and beach equipment while yelling, "It came too quick!"

We found refuge at a prime ocean view spot at the bar & grill. We split an $18 club sandwich and I tried a Turk's Head Amber beer. The waitress said that everyone has been complaining about the weather. I was thinking that we had gotten lucky with the weather so far. By this time, the rain had already stopped. It had poured for all of maybe three minutes and the place was practically deserted. Now don't get me wrong -- I was concerned about getting rained out, but I realize now that this week the weather may be like Hawai'i, where it does technically rain everyday, but it's not a washout. I assume these folks who are complaining are from the east coast because they need something to complain about.

After a relaxing lunch and finally meeting people who were actually friendly toward us, we continued down the beach beyond what may have once been a pier and for another 1/2 mile or so before turning around. The wind on the beach is quite strong, but it's almost a necessity because the sun, heat, and humidity is extremely strong. The weather online said it was a feels-like temperature of 109º Wowzers. This was making us quite parched, so we walked back to our place where I mixed some ginger-ale with some fruit juice we bought at the grocery store. Gin and Juice if you will.

Finally Arrived in Turks...and Caicos Too

Well if you read the last post, it was considerable effort to finally reach the Turks & Caicos. I caught maybe 30 mins of neck breaking sleep enroute from Atlanta, but woke up in time for both biscotti and this view out the window. The water was a nice turquoise blue as you can see. Though, if you look on the horizon, there's a fairly strong thunderstorm cell building up as well. This was to be expected as we are not the brightest and chose to go to the middle of the Caribbean at hurricane season's peak. After landing, the hot and humid weather was a welcome relief to the aircraft's cold cabin. We breezed through customs and immigration and got a "taxi" to our hotel.
Now, I should explain something about transportation on the Turks & Caicos, and that . . . there isn't any. No buses or traditional taxis to speak of - just shared ride vans that charge PER PERSON. Four people in the van all going about 8 miles from the airport? That'll be $80. Uber needs to get in here. After the disheartening "taxi" fare, we received a less than warm welcome at the hotel, where our room was not yet ready.

We got some lunch in the meantime, which was good because I was getting cranky. I just really hate being in 90 degree heat while wearing pants. Nobody likes pants. Finally we got our room and I could take my pants off. Yay! Speculating that we will get rained out for the next four days, we went straight to the beach to take advantage of the sun before it goes away. Soon enough, some storm clouds started rolling in and we were forced to flee the ensuing downpour. After it rained itself out, we walked to a grocery store down the street which is comparable to Whole Foods. You see, everything on this island is quite expensive.

Our hotel is almost like a condo since it came with laundry, a toaster, some dishes, and various utensils, so our dinner tonight consisted of bagels and cream cheese washed down with a local beer called "Turk's Head." It will be interesting to see what happens tomorrow because everything is so weather dependent. With any luck, we will find some gaps in the rain and the storms so we can go out and play.

NonRev Adventures to the Caribbean

Recently my parents faced a bit of a challenge trying to get to Santa Fe, New Mexico. You see, it can be a challenge to get to some of the less popular airports due to fewer flight options and one has to change planes somewhere and "Two-Leg It," as I say. Over the course of about 12 hours, I changed my parents' flights three times and had them going to a completely different airport in the end. Needless to say, this was a bit stressful for them. All the flights kept getting oversold at last minute when they had 40 seats open just the day before.

This same airline, which shall remain unnamed (let's just say it rhymes with schmamerican), caused Nicole and I issues just days later. The checkin process was archaic, requiring that we wait in line to speak to an agent who types furiously for a few minutes before issuing a paper ticket straight out of 1992. And despite entering Nicole's TSA-PreCheck number, she was put in the commoners line. Despite boarding a flight with more than 50 open seats, the gate agent issued us tickets that were rows apart from each other. And despite an online listing system that showed 12 seats available for our final leg, the company's own website wouldn't allow tickets to be purchased for said flight -- indicating that in fact that were no seats. In the nonrev world, 12 vs none is a pretty big difference. Why the discrepancy? So as we walked by a lineup of slot machines at McCarran International Airport, we figured that flying Schmamerican was too much of a gamble. How did we end up in Vegas? Well . . .

We were planning to go to Turks & Caicos in the Caribbean, which does not have direct flights. Our first, and most direct option, was to go from LA-Miami-Turks, but then the Miami flight was filling up rapidly because 20 people randomly decided they were going to go to Miami that day. There was a workaround that involved flying from LA-Las Vegas-Miami, so we tried that. Once in Las Vegas, all flights from Miami to Turks looked sketchy at best, so we went Las Vegas-Atlanta on Delta. Now bear in mind that we arrived in Atlanta around 5:45am and hadn't slept, so we wanted a place to rest. We each had some United club passes that we get from our credit card company, but we didn't have a United boarding pass. Ah, but wait! I listed us on a flight from Atlanta to Houston on United, scanned the pass at the desk and immediately canceled the booking once we had our foot in the door.




Now some might say that is cheating, but the boarding pass rule is bollocks as far as I'm concerned. Refueling with hot oatmeal and some Otis Spunkmeyer muffins, we prepared for our third leg, which would (hopefully) take us to Turks & Caicos, and into a tropical depression. Not like emotionally depressed, but the low pressure system kind.

What We Know So Far . . .

Classic cars, Castro, communism, and cigars. I think most Americans still have a healthy dose of skepticism toward this island nation, which is one of the world's few remaining communist regimes. As these political caricatures in the Museo de la Revolución illustrate - our policies of embargos and sloppy diplomacy have only made it easier for those in power in Cuba to point the blame at the United States. So what is it like as an American to visit a country that has been effectively closed off to us for more than 50 years? Brace for one of my longest posts ever...

Cuba the Communist State:
While staying in Havana, one of the other guests at our casa was an economics professor from the United States who was studying the country and its struggles. Communism takes many forms and Greg and I were struggling to determine what form Cuba had adopted. The professor reminded us that throughout time Castro had made modest reforms that allowed private enterprise, only to take all the new businesses away shortly thereafter. This has led to an environment where nobody wants to take a risk. With Raúl now in power, reform is back on the table, but don't expect some fancy new department store to spring up from the smog filled streets.

Why is there a picture of a pizza here? Let's rewind to my trip to Vietnam. While things were certainly run differently over there, internet was everywhere, there was no shortage of food or beverage and long lines were not necessary to acquire these goods. Not so in Cuba. I ordered a Margherita pizza and this is what I got. Where are the tomatoes? Non existent. Elsewhere Greg was denied a chicken sandwich. On average, the sandwiches I ordered were missing about 2 ingredients. And by the way, Cuban sandwiches as we know them don't exist. The lady preparing breakfast at our Havana casa was fascinated by the professor's coconut coffee flavoring as if he had brought a bar of gold into the country.

When we were awaiting our delayed flight from Cancun to Havana, we witnessed some entrepreneurs attempting to import everything from wall fans to pipes to diapers into the country. The much needed gasoline that fuels the thirsty and aging cars is just as hard to acquire. We had to stop at three gas stations on our way out of Havana before we could top off the tank (which is in the trunk due to the original parts rusting out).

Any kind of branding or advertising is almost nonexistent. Thanks in part to the embargo, the only beverages for sale are all owned by the state. Choices just aren't there. It is far from the consumer culture that dominates the United States. That being said, homelessness is nonexistent. Everyone is doing something - albeit mundane. Dozens with machetes clear grass from the median in possibly the least efficient way. Farmers give 90% of their production to the state, though in recent years they are rewarded wages based on their output. But as you can see by this man's sweat-stained shirt, it's not exactly an easy or desirable job.

But what if the embargo gets lifted? Things probably won't change as rapidly as people think. Cuba would no doubt put up tariff protections to avoid the market being flooded. Imagine something as simple as Coca-Cola being put on the shelves as stores. Would people really choose the state's "TuKola" over a long forbidden American icon like Coke? Not a chance. But maybe if the Coke was $5 a can, they would think twice. And those old American cars driving around? If the Cuban government is smart, they won't allow wealthy foreign collectors to sweep in and wrestle them back to the states.

Cuba the Tourist Destination?
I admit that a large part of Cuba's allure was the fact that it was something unavailable to me. Our time there was limited to just two places, a short 90 mile drive apart. Or as the locals would say, "A very long and far drive!" That in itself demonstrates that Cuba has a ways to go as far as infrastructure and tourism services. One could theoretically go to Cuba, stay at a fancy hotel in Havana or a beach resort in Varadero and not have any of the issues that Greg and I experienced. But if one does their travels that way, they never really saw Cuba.

Because if you don't find yourself late, confused, at the side of the road, stranded, waiting in line, or locked in, you could just has easily vacationed in Cancun or any other caribbean destination. It takes a certain kind of tourist to see Cuba that way. Once the floodgates open, I simply don't see the average American getting excited for what will certainly be a very confusing adventure. That being said, I would have liked to visit a beach and relax. The problem was that neither transportation or money could be acquired easily. #communism

So how do Cubans feel about all this? From the interactions we had, everyone seemed legitimately happy to have us. And it didn't come off as a sort of false friendliness like it does in many other countries. People in Cuba were some of the most friendly I have ever encountered and harbored zero animosity toward Americans.

Despite internet being hard to acquire, people are finding a means to get information. Not all sites are blocked. I could easily get on facebook and major foreign news pages like the BBC. These sites were blocked in Vietnam.

It seems that a good portion of the population knows what it is missing and aspires to something more. Our guide in Viñales was quoting American TV shows, House of Cards and Breaking Bad and did an incredibly accurate impersonation of Donald Trump saying, "huuuuuuge." The information is out there if people look for it. Many don't. There is something to be said about a simple life. If you don't know what you are missing, life is easy. My landscaping job at DCA airport? One of the best jobs I've ever had. It was simple and carefree. I got to work outside and never had to worry about deadlines or big wig clients. I realized just how nice being disconnected was once I returned to the United States. A truck had attacked civilians in France, the PM of the UK had stepped down, Turkey was confronting a military uprising, and people in my own country are taking to the streets to either protest racial divisions or chase Pokémon. Maybe there is such a thing as being too connected. Can the U.S. and Cuba resolve our differences? There are many in congress who think the embargo should stand -- citing human rights violations. We don't seem to have that issue with China.

There is clearly no quarrel between the American people and the Cuban people. As our server in Viñales stated, "It's just the governments that have the issues. And they're always idiots." A change is long overdue. Love him or hate him, Obama was the first one to take the first steps toward normalization and I could not have taken this trip (at least legally) without his policies. I hope that our governments have the sense to continue working together for mutual benefit and don't go backward. I am confident that changes are coming, but you probably have to wait in line for them.