The flight was very long and entertainment media on Thomas Cook flight honestly sucks! 6 movies and 6 TV show episodes. Only one movie was watchable, the rest rubbish. Can’t wait to fly with them home! Will die from boredom.
Visas for Cuba (Cuba entrance card) we ordered online via cubavisas.com website. Paid around £25 each and it was mailed to us rather quickly. Buying directly from Cuba embassy would have cost us £65 or so.
However, when we were boarding Thomas Cook they were handing out them for free and you can handwrite those. So we waisted £25. Always contact your airline and ask if they give out cards for free.
We also had to fill in declaration. I put my mobile, cash and other photo cameras in. Didn’t tick any of the boxes which were asking if I have sharp objects (was worried about my Swiss knife), live animals or vegetables (I had loads of dried nuts). Honestly, they didn’t care much. I had some vitamins lose in a travel box, but no one checked anything.
It took us good 30min at the Cuban border, but was very smooth. Passed via VIP booth as other lines were more busy and it was my lucky day. One question they asked was have you been to Brazil. Probably precaution from Zika virus outbreak.
Straight after hand baggage scan for whatever you are bringing. It was smooth as well. Locals seem either not using deodorants or it is not working in that humid hot environment as it was slightly stinking of sweat.
After immigration, we waited at least another 30min for luggages to arrive. It was not clear wich belt to use, but eventually bags arrived intact, all locks in place, nothing broken or stolen (as everyone was saying not to lock as they break the locks and zippers that way and things go missing, not true apparently). Of course, all valuable stuff always keep in your hand luggage.
We had to queue in another line to exit airport, a young guy was collecting the immigration paper. Quickly checking them (barely checking) and people going out of airport. Straight away Taxi people came to us and they were super friendly, not aggressively trying to get customers. I politely said that we have a rental and after explaining us where to exchange money they walked away.
We had to go to departure Hall for exchange. Almost no queue as both cashiers with short queue. I wanted to exchange £800, but after thoroughly checking every banknote the lady rejected £300 – 15 banknotes of £20, just because they had something written on them, some small stripe of ink, dirty or had tear and wear signs. So make sure you bring new £10 banknotes as those were perfectly fine. Exchange rate was not too bad 1.24 CUC for £1.
Once we had money, we went to collect the car.
Once again, everyone was very helpful giving us pointers where to go. I’ve knocked the door as the Rex office doors were closed and opened. The lady was having a snack. She barely could speak English. She filled all paper work (very slowly, no rush in Cuba) and gave us the keys. We had to pay extra for insurance, full tank of fuel and deposit, which in total was 774 CUC. Roughly to our rental price of £1500 add another £500.
Also, while waiting for car paperwork as well as exchange, electricity went down couple times for a second. So anti-surge adapter is good to have.
The car looked good – Honday Sonata with signs of wear and tear. Loads of scratches and damage signs, but overall good. Huge trunk space!
When leaving airport we’ve got confused which way to go. Signs are not very easy to understand, but some guy in parking lot showed us where to go.
On the road it was all smooth. We saw people on motorbikes, horses, back of the pick-up car and old old buses.
We arrived to main square quite quickly. Somehow it reminds me a bit of India, just very clean, but the state of houses was similar. We saw a ETECSA office, so we went to buy a sim card. There was quite a queue to enter inside as the guard was controlling how many people entering and leaving. Every new person coming in was asking “ultimo?”, meaning who is the last. Reminds me of old times when we used to queue like that to see a doctor.
Once inside, there was another queue, but we got to sit on sofa as well as to enjoy air conditioning. The lady at the desk was very helpful. We asked a card with Internet. She suggested us to get those Wi-Fi access card 1CUC for 1 hour. Otherwise normal sim card was 40 CUC + data plan for 20CUC and wait 2 days to activate the Internet on your mobile.
So we took 20 hours for 4 of us. The same card we have to use in casa particulare. So good to have more of them. Make sure you don’t close the page where you log in so you can stop the counter and use it later.
Once we found the place to stay, we dropped our bags and left for dinner. We booked the house on Airbnb for £64 per night for 4 people. The host was welcoming and agreed to meet us with breakfast at 9am, 5CUC each.
We stopped by in liquor shop to buy some rum for the evening. We’ve paid for bottle of special 8CUC. Shops look odd, since long shelves of same goods. All they had was basically Rum, water, Pepsi, pasta, olives, pizza mix and some frozen meat. They just fill in windows with same thing. Amazing merchandise strategy!
We went for dinner where our host recommend. The place was touristic, since advertised on TripAdvisor, but it was OK. Main dish 15-17CUC and cocktails 3-4CUC. We’ve paid 91CUC for 4 of us.
On our way home we made a wrong turn to one way street as signs not very clear! Local people jumped on the street telling us to go other way. They seemed very entertained by this event.
The car we parked in some old lady’s house for her to watch it over night. Literally, she sat on a chair and watched it for 2CUC.
Woke up 4:30am because of Jetlag. Also rain is pouring outside so can’t really sleep anymore. Breakfast at 9am only haha and limited Internet.