Arrival day in Havana

Our day started very early, with wake-up at 6am … yes, fans, that's 3am California time.  This was in order to meet our group at 7am for the charter flight from Miami to Cuba.  We got there, met up with Joan, Karl and Missy, met the others in our group, and happily were ready to go when we heard the flight was delayed.  We had been warned this might happen, so we didn’t mind a short delay.  Sadly, it was not a short delay, but rather a long delay, and we ended up spending 6 hours in the airport before finally departing for the short flight to Cuba.  It took us longer to go from Miami to Havana than from San Francisco to Miami!

It's pretty much a madhouse upon arrival.  You go through the immigration line, and some people take forever while others just scoot through, with no apparent pattern.  Marina and I made it through right away.  When you get to the other side, which feels like it should be called the Other Side because you push a rather imposing door, and don't really know what is next, you have to go through a line-up of metal detectors.  This seems odd to have to do to enter the country rather than to get on a plane, but oh well.

We then waited for the group which took easily another 40 minutes.  I was fascinated to watch the other passengers with their bundles.  Every other Cuban had a big flat screen TV.  And I mean really big.  They also had a million bundles, all shrink-wrapped to protect them.  So much for the embargo.  It seems that you can bring in whatever you want for personal use.  It looked to me like it was a standard weekend for a Cuban to go to Miami, buy a flat screen TV, then fly home.

Our drive to the hotel was interesting.  First, of course, we saw all the famous old American cars.  It really is striking and feels like you are on a movie set.

Then, we noticed that there were huge numbers of magnificent buildings in various states of decay.  It makes you realize how hard it is to keep up infrastructure, and how much needs to be invested.

The hotel (not the one above!) is lovely – pretty modern, with nice big rooms.  The group reassembled for our orientation and then dinner.  We already feel as if we've eaten too much, and just in one day, we have had multiple opportunities to sample fine Cuban rum, here at a fine "private" restaurant on a most unlikely street for fine restaurants..

-- Donna