Nothing can be Easy

If it wasn't immediately clear from my other posts on here, Cuba has a way of making things unnecessarily complicated. From start to finish, this trip has been a bit of a challenge and a test of one's patience and ability to handle pressure. We got up this morning expecting a car to be ready to take us to the airport. We paced around for a bit with nobody to ask about the car and after beginning to sweat about about the possibility of missing our flight, the car was outside ready to go.

Our driver was driving a Lada from old Soviet days. Every bump we hit in the road caused me to launch out of my seat and almost hit my head on the ceiling. There were no seatbelts . . . or apparently shocks. We made excellent time, getting to the airport in about 2 hours including a stop for gas. Evidently there has not been gas in Viñales for two days, so we waited in line at a service station. We were also stopped by La Policia at a checkpoint. It was not really clear what was happening. I could only pick out a few words as they stared at Greg in the front seat. I heard them say, "Adelante" or go ahead, but both the driver and the police were giving Greg the stare down so I have no idea what was happening. Based on some contextual clues, the best I can figure is that the police were suggesting we take a different road and the driver was confirming if this was ok with Greg of all people. Greg turned around to look at me for help, but was only met with shrugged shoulders. I was afraid we were going to have to pay a bribe or end up in Cuban jail. Luckily neither of these happened.

At the Havana airport, Greg and I made some last minute purchases, the best of which were a series of clearly pirated reggaeton music from Cuba. Against all odds, our Cubana flight departed on time and without incident. We were fairly efficiently processed through customs in Cancun, so clearly something had to go wrong now. It did. We were standby on a United flight that was looking ok for both of us as we were the only standbys and I saw there were two seats still available. At last minute, United held the plane for a couple that wasn't even supposed to be on the plane, but were late coming in and were making a connection. The door closed without us.

There was a Delta flight two hours later, but one cannot just switch gates at the Cancun Airport. We had to get an escort to take us through a jetway, down to the arrivals level and through customs and immigration again. That's correct. There are no exits in Cancun unless you get on a plane. It was a very complicated process that required we go through security again. Fortunately we still had some time, and we had no difficulty in getting on Delta, albeit Greg was a bit jealous of my first class seat. It was basically the perfect ending to a trip that had one road block after another. Somehow, we made it back to the United States and were not harassed about the Republic of Cuba stamp now fresh in our passports. Times they are a changing.