Wednesday 16 June 2010

Cuba at its best (2)


The trip we chose this time was divided in two very different parts, the first one in La Habana, capital of Cuba, and the second one in Varadero, capital of the turism in Cuba.

We arrived at Cuba on a Friday evening after a 30 hours day. The sun was already set and as it was quite difficult to see anything we just went to the hotel after some baggage stress and started fighting against jet-lag. (We should have known that the baggage can appear in this airport at ANY baggage carousel, and if you have two pieces it is not mandatory to find both of them in the same one... no comment).

The hotel Gilda selected is located in the middle of the capital just in front of "El Capitolio". Do not know why and do not know how but we were surprised with a suite that was larger than the apartment where I am living now. Beautiful views at two different streets from a hotel corner.

After trying to sleep and waking up in the mood of having lunch we got the first shock, there was almost one policeman every 50 meters in the streets, and it was 08:00am in the morning. We were told later that they were not there to request our documentation as we have seen in every american style film but to protect us, and well I don´t know if they protected us but we had no incidents and no one requested our papers during the whole visit.

Second shock. Before going to Cuba we were told by a lot of people to bring different items "difficult" to get there, from school stuff to any clothes we could leave there because we would be almost assaulted by myriads of people begging for anything. Bullshit. The only beggars we saw were "professional" beggars, and they are spread all over the world. One day I will talk more about what I call "The Corporation", but today is not the right time.
Actually we could not find anyone to give the stuff we had taken with us and we had to leave it behind in the hotel, I hope it will be used for a good cause...
Probably we were not in the most vacational season but this only confirms my idea that it is not so necessary all this stuff. I really think we should stick to the right channels if we feel we have to contribute to soften their embargo, but other solutions do not work and only create more misery.
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Holidays are for the summer