Hello Cuba

So it's goodbye to Mexico City. Our tour guide was quite upfront about wanting to show us a good time so that we would convince others that it was a good place to visit, and at times she rather overdid it by trying to put too positive spin on things, but she didn't really need to. It's a nice city, and we've had a great time.

The place is clean, the water is safe, the food is nice, it's a cheap place to visit. There are plenty of green spaces, lots of cultural events going on, and we've always felt safe. The people are friendly and smiling. Apart from a higher level of pollution than we are used to (yes Catarina, that is smog, not a cloud), we can't think of anything to complain about.

Apart from one queue at the airport this morning where every bunny on a tour like us who hadn't booked their own ticket had to queue up, because the self check in machines didn't like anybody who couldn't produce the credit card that paid for their bookings, we've breezed through every line. Whilst the meal on AeroMexico flights seem to be the same basic croissant every flight, the planes are newish, and certainly comfortable.

But enough about Mexico City. Let's move to the real highlight. We're now in Cuba. One of the last true un-homogenised places on the planet. Apart from the airport, which gives a token effort to be modern or airlines wouldn't fly there, everything is in a time warp, and it's brilliant. To be fair, it may well be that the locals are not too thrilled to be stuck in the sixties, but if you can gloss over that point, it's like being in a huge Disneyland theme park, but everything is genuinely genuine. Most locals drive large American cars like Chevys from the 50s. When they need a paint touch up, they get out the tin of house paint and a brush, so they are pink, yellow, blue and every other colour of the rainbow. Taxis are old and decrepit, but you could take a cyclo or a donkey cart if your are unhappy with them.

Of course Americans aren't allowed here, so the place is full of Australians, Brits, Scandanavians, Russians and lot of others all trying to see the place before US relations are normalised, and it becomes another homogenised destination where tipping is expected and there are fast food outlets on every corner.

This leads to all kinds of unique situations. Nothing American is accepted. You can't change American dollars (legally) so we had to bring euros. Visa, Mastercard, Diners and American Express are all American companies, so you can't use credit cards anywhere. ATMs are almost non existent. Not only aren't Americans allowed to travel here, but Brendan can't sell any tour or package that includes Cuba, so we had to book through an Australian travel agent. American airlines can't fly here, so we had to enter via Mexico, and the only question they asked us before allowing us to board our flight here was whether we'd been in the US in the last 7 days.

To give you an idea of the uniqueness of it all, you need a visa to travel to Cuba, but you don't apply for it before you travel. No, you go to the airline travel counter, in our case the AeroMexican information desk, just before you hop on the plane airside, part with some cash, and they give you a blank visa form to fill out and hand in when you arrive. It's the only self-serve visa process I've ever encountered. Of course it's real purpose is to get hard currencies into the country, but it's still an odd experience.

As Mandy said, if you want to get an authentic 60's travel experience, you can hardly complain when you get, well ... a 60's travel experience. Our baggage took exactly two hours to get from the plane to the carousel, shattering the record that Nairobi, Kenya held of 90 minutes. Given that several flights arrived after us, there were hundreds of travellers crammed into the airless arrivals hall, hot under and over the collar. Then it was at least another two hours through the customs queue for anybody declaring goods, which is really any Cuban returning from overseas as this is the only way to import appliances, fittings for your house, and clothes. Cubans all seemed to have trolley loads of shrink-wrapped packages with them. Luckily we walked through the queue that had nothing to declare, or we might still be there.

Our transfer driver was still waiting for us after two hours with his clapped out taxi, bless him, though the boot and the doors had trouble opening and more trouble closing when we tried to get in. Eventually dodged the Chevies and the donkeys to arrive in the old quarter of town, to have the driver turn to me and ask what the address was. How would I know? He was the one who picked us up with the hotel sign to take us there.

There's no internet, no wifi, and we can't get any mobile phone coverage, so you'll be reading this a week after its written, when we get back to a smoggy homogenised country.

We are staying on the third floor of an old villa (known as a Casa) in the old quarter of the city. A little balcony to stand on and admire life below us, with breakfast on the rooftop. It's lovely.

Walked around the old quarter to familiarise ourselves with our surroundings, then sat in an outdoor garden restaurant and had a dinner of Pino Colada, Cuban marinated chicken, vegetables, creme caramel and cuban coffee for $10 a head.