At Paris CDG, I shared a beer with this gentleman from Mali who was waiting for his flight to Bamako. Hearing him talking about his country reminded me how badly I've been wanting to visit Mali for a while. Hopefully soon!
Anyway, after a nine and a half hour flight from Paris to Havana, when we were about to land at Havana, the pilot announced that there was a tropical storm at Havana and Jose Marti airport (more on him later) was shut down so our flight was being diverted to a town called Veradero about 70 miles away. Then we were told that we had to wait in the aircraft since we couldn't exit at this airport (something about immigration and customs).
One German couple decided to raise a stink and wanted to know when exactly we would be flying back to Havana. Obviously, the aircraft couldn't take off for Havana till the airport there would not open and that was beyond the control, and knowledge, of the crew. But the German couple would have nothing of it - "No you have to tell us when. One hour? Two hours? Ten hours?"
While the Germans were being a pain in the backside, the Cubans in the plane were having a party - much laughing, story-telling and photo-taking. Well, that is the Cuban psychology for you. Fun loving in spite of adversity.
Finally, after two hours of waiting (and much head-shaking and pooh-poohing by the aforementioned German couple), we were finally told, amidst clapping, that the storm at Havana had abated and the airport was open.
So after a short twenty minutes flight, we landed in our original intended destination. Since the airport had been closed for a few hours and when it opened quite a few flights landed around the same time so the queue at immigrations was, i'm not joking here, forty persons deep. And naturally, as per I-forget-who's law, the queue I was in moved the slowest.
After two hours of waiting, my turn came. Now let me tell you something about Cuban visas. Most people are given a 'Tourist card' which is not stuck onto the passport so there is never any proof that you entered Cuba. But the Cuban embassy in Delhi issued me a stick-on visa - so I was an outlier in the queue. But that was not all, the lady apparently had never seen an Indian passport earlier (so it seemed!) so she asked me to stand aside and fill a landing card.
Not wanting to deal with my 'tricky' case, she passed me onto her colleague who made a couple of phone calls and asked me to wait. Then her boss came and she asked me all sorts of questions "why are you in Cuba? When are you leaving?" I was joining a tour group so I showed her my voucher and return flight details. Then she decided to go through my passport and stamps page by page. When she saw all the unconventional visas in my passport (Uzbekistan, Burma, Iran, Russia) she smiled and asked, "you like to travel?". I knew it then that my bonafides were established and she told her colleague to stamp me in the country. So now I have a Iran visa in my passport, and a Cuban one. Heaven knows if I'll ever be able to get into the US (not that I want to!). Maybe I need to visit North Korea to seal the issue.
The first day I just went to "Viejo Havana" (Old Havana) and walked around just to get orientated and used to the new country I was in. As a first timer into Cuba, there were three things that struck me about Havana (and Cuba, in general). Yes, I'm going to bore you with a list.
First are the colours. It's an explosion of colours. The buildings are all painted in lovely hues of pink, yellow, red, orange.....the colours really hit you.
Secondly, the old cars. Because of the trade embargo it is not easy to import cars into Cuba so they're mainly stuck with what they had pre-revolution (1958) and let me tell you, I just love the cars from the 40s and the 50s. They had character and life of their own (unlike the so-called ergonomic and efficient, but totally insipid and shitty, designs we get for cars today). So about 80% of the cars on the street (that's my reckoning of the percentage) are from the 40s and 50s which gives the country a very old-world feel.
Thirdly, and this is my favourite one, there is music everywhere. I know it sounds like a cliche, but it is totally true. You're walking down a residential street and there is music emanating from almost every second house - I'm sure Cuba has more bands per-capita than any other country. There's live music in most good restaurants and if there isn't live music, there is, of course, music playing. So you're never far away from music.
Those were my first impressions of Cuba, and in hindsight, they were not off the mark.
Anyway, after a nine and a half hour flight from Paris to Havana, when we were about to land at Havana, the pilot announced that there was a tropical storm at Havana and Jose Marti airport (more on him later) was shut down so our flight was being diverted to a town called Veradero about 70 miles away. Then we were told that we had to wait in the aircraft since we couldn't exit at this airport (something about immigration and customs).
One German couple decided to raise a stink and wanted to know when exactly we would be flying back to Havana. Obviously, the aircraft couldn't take off for Havana till the airport there would not open and that was beyond the control, and knowledge, of the crew. But the German couple would have nothing of it - "No you have to tell us when. One hour? Two hours? Ten hours?"
While the Germans were being a pain in the backside, the Cubans in the plane were having a party - much laughing, story-telling and photo-taking. Well, that is the Cuban psychology for you. Fun loving in spite of adversity.
Finally, after two hours of waiting (and much head-shaking and pooh-poohing by the aforementioned German couple), we were finally told, amidst clapping, that the storm at Havana had abated and the airport was open.
So after a short twenty minutes flight, we landed in our original intended destination. Since the airport had been closed for a few hours and when it opened quite a few flights landed around the same time so the queue at immigrations was, i'm not joking here, forty persons deep. And naturally, as per I-forget-who's law, the queue I was in moved the slowest.
After two hours of waiting, my turn came. Now let me tell you something about Cuban visas. Most people are given a 'Tourist card' which is not stuck onto the passport so there is never any proof that you entered Cuba. But the Cuban embassy in Delhi issued me a stick-on visa - so I was an outlier in the queue. But that was not all, the lady apparently had never seen an Indian passport earlier (so it seemed!) so she asked me to stand aside and fill a landing card.
Not wanting to deal with my 'tricky' case, she passed me onto her colleague who made a couple of phone calls and asked me to wait. Then her boss came and she asked me all sorts of questions "why are you in Cuba? When are you leaving?" I was joining a tour group so I showed her my voucher and return flight details. Then she decided to go through my passport and stamps page by page. When she saw all the unconventional visas in my passport (Uzbekistan, Burma, Iran, Russia) she smiled and asked, "you like to travel?". I knew it then that my bonafides were established and she told her colleague to stamp me in the country. So now I have a Iran visa in my passport, and a Cuban one. Heaven knows if I'll ever be able to get into the US (not that I want to!). Maybe I need to visit North Korea to seal the issue.
The first day I just went to "Viejo Havana" (Old Havana) and walked around just to get orientated and used to the new country I was in. As a first timer into Cuba, there were three things that struck me about Havana (and Cuba, in general). Yes, I'm going to bore you with a list.
First are the colours. It's an explosion of colours. The buildings are all painted in lovely hues of pink, yellow, red, orange.....the colours really hit you.
Secondly, the old cars. Because of the trade embargo it is not easy to import cars into Cuba so they're mainly stuck with what they had pre-revolution (1958) and let me tell you, I just love the cars from the 40s and the 50s. They had character and life of their own (unlike the so-called ergonomic and efficient, but totally insipid and shitty, designs we get for cars today). So about 80% of the cars on the street (that's my reckoning of the percentage) are from the 40s and 50s which gives the country a very old-world feel.
Thirdly, and this is my favourite one, there is music everywhere. I know it sounds like a cliche, but it is totally true. You're walking down a residential street and there is music emanating from almost every second house - I'm sure Cuba has more bands per-capita than any other country. There's live music in most good restaurants and if there isn't live music, there is, of course, music playing. So you're never far away from music.
Those were my first impressions of Cuba, and in hindsight, they were not off the mark.
