We arrived safely in Mexico City. To say that there was a lot of dodgy shit, i.e. dodgy drug shit going down in business class on the way to Mexico City would be an understatement. I know how much flying long distances suck and you want to maintain a semblance of privacy and some shreds of human dignity, but wearing sunglasses for the entire 17 hour trip from Tokyo via Vancouver to Mexico, I mean come on. Not only was there at least 5 passengers in sunglasses the whole way, I also reckon the amount of chunky gold chains and gold knuckle duster type rings would have put them over their cabin baggage allowance alone. These peeps were also spending up to 40 minutes at a time in the bathroom. It would have been possible to round all five of these jokers up and make a Mexican version of Casino or Traffic.All I have read of Mexico City paints it as a gun filled, poor and therefore highly dangerous place. It is even dangerous to get taxis. We had done our research and were able to get an airport taxi for about $10 Australian all the way to our Hotel, La Casa de la Condessa Reforma. Lets just say for $AUD 40 per night it was a quiet and clean room in a “quaint and colourful” location. We felt safe enough to venture out for dinner and had a feed at something that is probably akin to a Mexican Sizzler called VIPS. Even though it looked a bit too “Commercial and Touristy” and probably would have met with withering stares and disdain from other Lonely Planet toting “Adventurers” we went in and had a pretty good Mexican feed. Tanya had something called Las Feurtes do Pollo which translates into the fountain of Chicken, which sounded interesting both now and potentially later, depending upon the food handling knowledge out back. I had a big arse soft taco with an absolutely amazing Chorizo and beef combo (carne de vaca y Chorizo). They did not have Corona, however Tans had a few Sol’s and I partook in a cervesa y nombre Indigo. Apparently it tasted like summer lemons according to the poor kid that was dragged out of the kitchen to speak English to us after a minor Spanish malfunction. We retired back to our room and watch Law and Order in Spanish, then went to sleep.
Woke up manjana and went down for breakfast. I have to pat myself on the back here as my Spanglish kicked arse. I was able to understand that the lady running the restaurant wanted to know if we were a guest or not. I was also able to order 2 coffees with milk, orange juice, scrambled eggs with bacon and a ham and cheese croissant. Having it all laid out in the menu made it a bit easier, but Tans was impressed and I think a bit relieved that we could be understood. We ordered up el caro to take us to the international airport and arrived at the Mexicana desk, where it all suddenly went pear shaped.
It would be an understatement to say that Mexicana’s hiring policies are attracting the best and brightest to their ranks. In fact what they are attracting is the laziest, slowest, stupidest and possibly rudest staff I’ve ever had the displeasure of conversing with. We arrived 2 hours before the flight, saw a few QANTAS signs and figured we could queue up in the Business Class check in, being that I am a QANTAS WP (Wanker Platinum). However after waiting about 30 minutes for the guy in front, who nicely told the women wiho had 50,000 bags that were trying to push in front of us to go behind we got to the desk only to be told that we were in coach (duh) and we would have to line up in the other line, which had increased in size, somewhat exponentially. After watching the baggage handlers have a competition as to who could take the longest and lift the least we arrived at the check in desk around 45 minutes after we had queued up in the coach line. There was much rapid Spanish and furrowing of brows which did not bode well. In fact I lost it when a STANDBY tag was put on my bag. “I booked these flights 6 months ago”, says I, “well we are overbooked” says the check in chica. I say that “I am getting on this plane or there will be trouble”. She gets Aliendjo the smarmy supervisor who tells us that it is oversold (no shit). I demand to know what kind of compensation we would get and he assured us we would be compensated and told us to get to the gate pronto. We arrived at the desk, waited around for a further 30 minutes and luckily got on. To say that I was red faced from anger fully resplendent with my 1,000 yard stare would be an understatement. Oh and by the way……the flight was delayed.
Things were looking up in-flight as we were able to get stuck in to the Bacardi and cokes, putting is in a “Cuban State of Mind”. The flight went without incident, although I must say that on Mexicana, International Civil Aviation regulations, are merely guidelines. People were walking around during taxing and damn near close to takeoff. There was a group of Chinese businessmen on board that kept getting out of their seats to look out the window, with no staff intervention. The guy in the seat in front was choosing a freaking ring tone on his mobile phone after a bi-lingual announcement in Spanish and English to turn off all electronic devices, especially mobiles. I’ve seen QANTAS staff pretty much crash tackle people to the ground that stand during taxi and mobile phone users are usually met with yelling and a barrage of withering stairs from most of their fellow passengers.
We landed in Havana where all power to the aircraft (a Boeing 757) was promptly cut and we were left to sauna for 10 minutes while Christ knows what happened.
After that we got off the plane and things took a turn for the worse for me. We got through immigration no problem. In fact Cuban immigration is a bit like being on a game show. You pick a numbered door, answer a few questions and if you get them right you are buzzed through to the next level, all the while you are on camera. After immigration you then have to get all your carry on X-rayed. Tanya was carrying a bag full of books and toiletries, so she was straight through. I was carrying a bag chock full of technology, 1 laptop, 3 cameras, 1 independent flash unit, a portable battery powered hard drive, cables, power packs, CF cards and a shitload of required leads, cords and plugs. This seemed somewhat of a problem, especially when my passport was seized and I was told to go to another area to get it back. The old pulse was going ah mucho rapido at this point. At one point we were actually ushered out of the airport where I was meant to pick up my passport, but after some crap Spanglish it was understood all round that I was an enemy of the state which required questioning at length. Happily I was not lead to a stone cell and subjected to genital electrocution, but I was asked many questions about my family, my job, my purpose in Cuba and about 10 questions on what I would be photographing. I think the gods where smiling as they could not find the guy that habla inglese, instead I spoke to a women who sort of spoke English and asked most of the questions in Spanish. I could understand what she was asking and between the two of us we managed to piece it together. I relaxed considerably when she called Tanya my husband, realized she had stuffed up and we both had a laugh, at that point things improved markedly. I was complimented on my manners and my Spanish, given back my passport and I was in Cuba.
We grabbed a cab and were on our way to the Hotel Deauville. Driving in was amazing, in fact it was everything I had dreamt of and imagined since I was 12 years old. The streets where full of old cars from the 50′s and newer Russian Lada’s (newer means late 60′s and 70′s). There was loads of murals to Julio de 26 (July 26 Movement), El Che (Che Guevara) and the workers and farmers of the Cuban revolution. We drove through streets that started out as semi-rural, in fact it looked a lot like outer Hawaii and Cairns in the early 80′s. Soon we were in the city where the streets were full of traffic, dilapidated but still beautiful Art Deo buildings, heaps of pedestrians, mangy dogs, el Camello (the truck busses), heaps of pedestrians and school kids on their way home. There was so much to take in and look at. A smorgasboard for the senses, a Cornucopia of Cuban-ness.
After arriving at the hotel we went up to our room, 806. The room was great apart from the semi naked Frenchman that Tanya surprised in there when she opened the door. I don’t know who was more surprised, us or naked French guy. Anyway no problem, we went down to reception, where we had to fill in an incident report and some largish black Cuban guys went upstairs to extract said Frenchy. Meanwhile we were given a new room 1006. This room had an AMAZING vista over the crumbling Havana skyline, the Malecon and the ocean. As we didn’t know Havana at all, we did not venture out of the hotel on the first night, we stayed in and had a craptacular dinner of steak, potatoes, cabbage, microscopic carrot and about 3 peas, Tans was not happy as she only got 2 peas and had ordered pork in a “special Cuban sauce”. The special thing about this sauce is that it was not there at all, pretty special. The predominant colour of both meals was dark brown (the meat) and beige (the vegetables). We had been pre advised not to expect haute cuisine, but how can you stuff up meat and 3 veg. Both of us were heard to remark “Would anyone else like a bite of banality”. We repaired to the bar where Tans had some Mojitos and I had a few Ron y La Rocas (Rum on the rocks).
We watched a huge electrical storm come in over the Malecon……..it was a great night and it felt good to be in Cuba finally.
