Anecdotes of a Globetrotter: Day 14 : Cubano!

After a slightly longer than 2 hr flight, I landed in Cuba. The heat and humidity immediately hit me as I stepped out of the plane. Back to tropical weather!

Went towards the immigration and I was nervous as I started doubting if I needed a visa to get into Cuba. I had not filled in the visa document as I wanted to be able to return it to Interjet to get a refund.

When I got to the immigration officer, he looked at my passport and tried to process my documents. Halfway through, he asked me to step back to the waiting line, while he rang someone on the phone. A guy came by shortly after, talked to the immigration officer, and was then called back to the counter. My passport was processed without further questions and without showing a visa! And my passport now has a new immigration stamp – Cuba!

Tried to find a currency exchange store at the arrivals hall, but didn’t see any. There was a tourist information counter in the centre of the hall, and the lady at the counter pointed me upstairs.

She subsequently asked if I needed a taxi and I said yes, and she pointed to a man in his 50s in a white shirt standing next to the counter. She said that he will follow me upstairs to change money, and he can then bring me to the taxi. It seemed strange to me at that time, but since the information was provided by the tourist info counter, it should be reliable.

As we took the lift up, I asked the driver what it would cost to get to the accommodation, whom then quoted USD25. Rodolfo had indicated to me that the cost of taxi should be about USD20, and since the amount didn’t seem too far off, I said ok.

After getting some $ changed, the driver led me out of the airport doors, and crossed the road to a car park. As we passed the doors, I noticed there were 2 other currency exchanges on the outside that were filled with people, as well as a queue of yellow taxis. This seemed more strange now, as Rodolfo did say that it’s better to take the official yellow taxis.

We continued walking to the car park, and soon got to a green classic Lada car with a sign “Taxi” on it. Apparently this was our ride! Pretty unexpected, as wasn’t expecting such a car.

The drive to Havana took about 20 mins. The 1st impression I got about Havana is that there were hardly any modern cars on the road. There were all kinds of classic antique cars which I had never seen before, and were driving pretty well. Singapore would not like seeing these vehicles on Singapore roads :D

While waiting at a traffic light, the driver (Leandro) called a vendor to the vehicle, bought 5 V-shaped sticks each filled with nuts, and gave me 2 – this is super nostalgic, and reminded me of kachang puteh.

I realised my Spanish wasn’t too bad actually, as Leandro and I managed to make some conversation, which went something like this – where I was from (Singapore), how long I would be staying in Havana (3 days), how long will I be in Cuba (15 days), am I going anywhere else in Cuba (yes, to the west and east of Cuba), how will I get to those places (rental car), commented on rental car being very expensive (will be travelling with friends), is the friend coming my boyfriend (just friends, both male and female), what time my friends are coming (later in the night), whether I have a boyfriend and where is he… etc.