DAY 29
Week 5
PLAYA DEL CARMEN (Quintana Roo, MEX) to HAVANA (La Habana, CUB)
Friday April 12th, 2019
TODAYS MILEAGE – 363 miles / 584 kilometres
TRIP MILEAGE – 16,136 miles / 25,968 kilometres
At 50 minutes, my flight took less time than it did for me to collect my luggage in Havana's Aeropuerto Internacional José Martí. It looked to be that the baggage handlers have thoroughly embraced the whole communism concept, by releasing one bag every couple of minutes wether it needed to or not.
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. The officials 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, while asking if I was a professional photographer.
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, due to the aformentioned baggage handlers efforts, but as it was out of my control – care factor zero.
My second “What Tha” moment came when changing US dollars to Cuban Convertible 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. The locals use the Cuban Peso - the CUP, which works out at around 25 CUP to the US dollar.
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 - Plaza del Cristo, where I settled on the El Chanchullero restaurant/bar for some wicked $2.50 USD Mojito’s and a really good feed of prawns for $7.00 USD.
• HAVANA ~ Getting My Bearings (La Habana, CUB)
Here's a breakdown of the travel times and distances:
∗ PLAYA DEL CARMEN (Quintana Roo, MEX) to CANCÚN ~ Aeropuerto Internacional de Cancún (Cancún, MEX)
33.4 miles / 53.8 kilometres
• Travel Time: 43 minutes
317 miles / 509 kilometres
• Aeromexico Flight AM449: 50 minutes
∗ HAVANA ~ Aeropuerto Internacional José Martí (La Habana, CUB) to HAVANA ~ Casa Reyna (Havana, CUB)
12.9 miles / 20.8 kilometres
• Travel Time: 38 minutes