At 50 minutes, my flight took less time than it did for me to collect my luggage, as it seemed that the baggage handlers have thoroughly embraced the who communism concept by releasing one bag every couple of minutes.
I have to say that clearing Customs & Immigration at the Havana airport was one of the easiest and quickest clearances I’ve been even been involved with. They did pay special attention to my camera gear and USB hard drives by asking me to show the camera body working with each lens and how the USB and SSD drives worked and what they were for.
I was met by a transfer driver who was spitting chips that I was an hour and twenty minutes late in getting to the Transfer Collection area, but as it was out of my control – care factor zero.
My second “What Tha” moment came when changing US dollars to Cuban pesos or “CUC” as it’s better known by. For the record, the first “What Tha” moment was the length (or lack thereof) of the female Immigration officer’s skirts. Fair Dinkum they were “Greyhound Skirts” as in chasing the hair!
I digress, back to the money changing. In retaliation to the US Embargo’s, the Cuban government had slapped a 10% tax on all US currency and have set the CUC rate to mirror the US dollar. Yeah … that’ll show Uncle Sam not to mess with you Cuba.
I got to my accommodations at Casa Reyna around 5:00 PM and was met by my hosts Marilyn and Ismael. With my lodgings, since approximately 2008, the Cuban government relaxed their stranglehold on the economy and allow private enterprise to service to burgeoning tourist trade, which is now the country’s largest hard currency revenue generator. With the relaxing of the laws, many of the locals have converted their homes to supply temporary accommodations as their major income source, thus relieving the burden on social welfare and earning themselves as decent wage, when the minimum wage is around $12 USD a week. As I was fanging for a feed, I headed over to one of the local squares and found the El Chanchullero Restaurant and managed to settle in for $2.50 USD Mojito’s and a really good feed of prawns for $7.00 USD.
