Rubics Cuba

It is difficult to organise things in Cuba.  It's a very piecemeal process.  Nonetheless, we decided to take the train down to Santiago and then to fly back from there.

The first problem was that the flights were booked out.  The second problem was that it was unclear if the train was running.  The original train, "The French train", which was normally the only reliable service, had been out of commission since February.  So, we were left with booking a 15 hour bus-ride, starting at 7.30 am.

Hotels had to be booked separately because the travel agent we were dealing with, who admittedly wasn't especially helpful, didn't have a working phone on her desk.  We did this online although no confirmation of the booking was received.  In order to contact the booking agency on their website, you had to enter one of those annoying numbers/picture values.  As annoying as those things are, it's even more annoying when the thing you are meant to be entering isn't actually displayed...  I'm guessing they get very few complaints!

Nonetheless, we checked out of our hotel at 6.45, grabbed a quick coffee and a roll and waited.  And waited.  Waited until 9.30 am, when, upon seeing a guy from the same company come into the hotel, we asked him about the bus to Santiago.  He duly called the head office for us and told us that we had just missed the bus but they would get it to come back to the hotel. Of course, this was sheer fiction and at 10.30 am, we went back to the reception counter and asked if we could check back in.

It now remained to try and cancel our bookings.  Luckily, there was an agency office near our hotel and, even more luckily, this time, we were dealing with an extremely competent woman.  She was able to make all of the required phone calls (a surprising number of these) and even persuaded the hotel in Santiago to cancel the online booking over the phone because of the website issues.  We then booked tickets to nearby Trinidad but there were no departures for another three days.

View from our hotel - with which we became increasingly familiar

So, another 3 nights in Havana.  Not the worst outcome by any stretch of the imagination - there are far worse places to be stranded - but it does show why people travel here on organised tours...