Day 2 – Trip to Cuba – Part Deux

13^th November 2010.

Well, about to leave my hotel and trying to finally get to Cuba, once again.!

This really does feel like a true challenge at the moment

Hotel stay and food were fine.

Taking an earlier flight of to Madrid today, hoping to be well on time to catch my connecting flight to Cuba

IB 3163 – 10:55 (LHR) – 13:45(MAD)

IB 6621 – 17:00 (MAD) – HAV (21:10)

Stay tunes to what happens next.!

I have posted some pics along with this report of my hotel in London Heathrow, instead of posting pics of Havana, unfortunately. Nevertheless, I have finally reached my destination and it finally feels good to be here.

The flight from London to Madrid was invariable late again, but this time I was at least on time to catch the connecting flight to Cuba. I got a window seat, and it was an Iberia domestic flight, food had to be bought. I had avoided it as I was still completely full on the buffet continental breakfast from the hotel. Got to catch up on some essential nap for about an hour and a half before landing in Madrid.

In Madrid, it was the normal procedure – people with RSU gates, wait until everyone disembarks from the flight and exit from the rear onto a waiting coach, which takes you to the RSU terminal.

To my surprise, the Havana flight (IB6621) was departing from the same gate as the previous day – U55. Being an expert of the RSU terminal by now, I didn’t have nay problems reaching that gate, and in fact guided few other passengers on the London-Madrid flight towards the gate.

IB6621, was delayed by around 25 minutes as they were waiting fro  some other passengers from the connecting flight! WHAT ABOUT ME.! I screamed in my mind.! Nevertheless, the captain guaranteed that we would make up for it and reach Havana on time.

I got a pretty decent seat – the first row in the economy section – Seat 10L. I had an enormous leg room available to myself, as good as a lie flat bed. Upon take off, which was pretty smooth, off course, it was the A340-600 (and trust me, it is bloody long.!), we were served dinner within an hour.

The dinner was nothing worthwhile. Almost burnt meat balls with semi boiled potato.! Anywyas, I didn’t have a choice, so had to gulp it down. I watched the disappearance of Alice creed, from my laptop, once I completed dinner, as the in-flight entertainment had not yet started.

I guess some one was spying on me, as just as the movie I was watching completed, volla! They started their in-flight movie – The sorcerers’ Apprentice! Watched half way through the movie, and then fell asleep. The next thing I knew, I was woken up by the FA and she served me pre landing snacks – cold baguettes, chocolate bar, juice and cold bread. Not appetising, but it did wake me up.!

As guaranteed the flight landed on time – 21:20 Cuba local time. By the time I was out of immigration and collected my baggage it was around 10:30. I was greeted by my Spanish speaking driver – nice chap but knew nothing in English. So it was back to basic sign languages between us. Exchanged some Cuban convertible pesos (1gbp = 1.42 CUC at the time of writing) and off we went.

We reached our first night hotel on the outskirts of Havana – at Playa Jibacoa. We were put up in a traditional Cuban village hotel type of a place called ‘Campismo Popular’. It was no best western, but it did have decent sized cottages and a great atmosphere.

I was sharing my room with Mark – The DJ from Ireland, although he spends most of his time these days in Greece, from the group, who was fast asleep by the time I reached. Not spoken to him yet, will do during the course of the day.

So that is the end of my second day report.

Do stay tuned for following days report.

Adios, for now.