The Island Nation - Veradero

May 11

I head down to the restaurant for coffee. They have a machine that dribbles out instant, but when I press the button all I get is hot water. Bad start to the day. The desk clerk gave me directions yesterday to a travel office where I can supposedly contact Air Canada. He said it opens at 9, so I leave at 8 to find it. Walk 10 blocks in the sweltering dawn heat to find it, but it is not there. On the way back I realize that all the hotels look the same – just like the tourists in them. I can't tell which one is mine. I think I find the right one, but I am turned away. All the guests at the hotel where I am staying must wear blue armbands, cuz that is what allows you to get the free meals and free drinks.I need to find the right hotel that matches my armband.

Sweating, and starting to panic now. I have no receipt for my room. The clock is ticking. Soon the brigade will be on the plane and off to Canada. I will alone in a country where I cannot speak the language. Little fish are safe when they are huddled in a school. It is the strays and that are picked off by predators. I will be swimming with the sharks in a few hours.

Large predatory fish often congregate in areas where smaller fish – the kind they would normally eat – swim up and pick them clean of parasites. The Cubans pick the bourgouisie tourists clean of excess dollars.

I finally find the hotel and locate Sandra, the diligent ICAP rep who speaks Spanish and English. She helps me quiz the desk clerk again. He says the travel office is on a different street than the first guy said. I walk back another 12 blocks, sweating, dubious, and find that he is clueless. Another wild goose chase. Frustrated. I walk back to the hotel. I will have to ride to the airport with the brigade, and try to buy a ticket there.

At the airport I seek a ticket on the Westjet flight with the brigade. No chance. The flight is full, and you can't buy Westjet tickets at the airport anyway. The brigade flies back to Canada, and the Cubans head off on their bus. I am alone now, on my own, stranger in a strange land.

There is a Sunwest flight leaving at 8 tonite. Maybe I can get a ticket from them. I am told by the Sunwest clerk to talk to the Cuban airport office, who tell me to talk to Sunwest. Language and communication are a problem. Finally I get to talk to a couple of Sunwest guys back in their office, who are really helpful. But tonite's Sunwest flight is full. I can wait around, and maybe get a seat if someone cancels. Can't sleep over in the airport, cuz it closes at nite. The Sunwest guys know of a casa I can go to, and they know the number of an Air Canada rep at a hotel in Havana. I must go across to the other side of the building, where there is a place I can phone from. There is an Asian guy in the little office sitting at a computer. I ask if I can use the phone, but he says he does not work here. In struggling broken English he indicates that he is just renting time on the internet. I have to wait about 15 minutes for someone to show up. Everyone I Cuban I have met so far has been polite and helpful, but this lady is annoyed that I am bothering her day. Doing her best to ignore me, while occasionally fanning herself lightly with a piece of paper. Asshole – this place is air conditioned. She finally places the call for me, and I talk to Air Canada. All flights are fully booked for today, tomorrow, the next day. Next seat is May 14. It is easy to get onto this island, but really hard to get off.

I go back to the only 3 chairs in the building, and reopen my Che biography, which I have not read since Day 1 in the camp in Caimito. I will read and wait for a chance at an open seat on Sunwest. The opening paragraph is stunning and seems to have been written just for me. Che has just completed his grand expedition across S America, just back to his home in Argentina after returning from Miami, looking over the notes he made of his trip. “He knew that his journey had changed him. 'The person who wrote these notes died upon stepping once again onto Argentine soil. The person who edits and publishes them, me, is no longer. At least I am not the person I was before. The vagabonding through America has changed me more than I thought.'” Like Che, this journey has changed me, and I am not the person I was before.

The Asian guy comes over and sits in one of the other seats. I start a conversation. Turns out he is from S Korea. Has very limited command of English. He is wearing a Che T shirt. We both fire up our laptops, and compare pics of Cuba. He has been in Cuba about as long as me. Maps are at a premium here. With a pen he has drawn an incredible detailed map of the streets in downtown Havana. This guy would be terrific at GIS.

All visitors to Cuba should bring their own maps, and screen captures of from Google Earth of places they might want to visit. When I told the people at the camp in Caimito that anyone with a computer in the US of Canada can zoom in to Google earth and see the buildings and sidewalks in the camp they are shocked, and a bit terrified.

He has a ticket from Toronto to Vancouver to Seoul tomorrow, but his ticket from Cuba to Toronto was a mistake – printed for June 11 instead of May 11. He called Air Canada just before I did, and they told him there was a seat available on May 13. Then he went to see Sunwest. He is also waiting for a Sunwest seat on tonite's plane. His Spanish is just as bad as mine, and he is not clear about what is going on. I soon realize that we are competing for the same seat. I feel sorry for him, and decide to call Air Canada again and confirm the May 14 ticket. But by now both the May 13 and 14 tickets have been sold, and the next open seat is May 16. We are both desperate to get off this island. I tell the Sunwest guy to give the first open seat (if any) to the Korean guy, cuz he is trying to connect to his ticket for Seoul. Until I patiently explain it to him, he is not aware that he does not have a guaranteed seat on the plane tonite, is not likely to get one, cannot sleep here in the airport, must likely get a taxi to a motel or casa for the nite. He is just as freaked out at I am. I talk to SunWest again and find that there is a seat on a flight to Toronto tomorrow. Cost of a pre-booked flight = $150. Cost of a ticket on the spot market = $500. There is blood in the water, and the sharks that feed on crippled tourists are circling. I don't care if it is $5,000, just get me off this island.

The airport is filling up with tourists. Must be a flight leaving soon, which means there must be a flight coming in soon. May be the last chance for a bus back to Veradaro today. Must make a choice soon. I talk to the information booth – no more buses to Veradero. I meet a guy in the parking lot. Yes there is a bus, leaves in 15 minutes. I can take it, even tho it is chartered for tourists on the incoming flight. No charge – just slip the driver 10 CUC. OK with me. I get on, and the bus soon fills with fat, pallid tourists. A whole busload of Germans. I would prefer to stay in the casa the Korean told me about, but I am in desperation mode now. I am a fat stupid tourist carrying around a ridiculously huge load of crap, with no ticket off the island, can' t speak the language, nowhere to sleep, and I suddenly realize I don't know where the bus is going.

Fantasyland is over. Must face the grim reality of the real world. I am an old man, with very limited personal savings, unemployed, with no marketable skills, recently moved to Canada, one of the most expensive cost-of-living locations in the world, now locked into a scene where my bank account is hemoraging money.

When I discuss the many weird situations I have been thru in my life people often seem amazed by how cool I am under fire. I casually paddle an inflatable boat I have hardly used before offshore and dive into breaking waves. No problem. But I am in full panic mode now. This is an out of control chain reaction heading towards full meltdown.

But it turns out that the bus does head down the peninsula towards the hotel I stayed in last nite. Better to pay the price and rent a room in this tacky tourist trap rather than drag all my possessions around town in the hot sun looking for a cheaper casa. I don't have much CUC on me, I ask the desk clerk, is there a bank open? No. Can I pay with Canadian dollars? No. Can I use my credit card? No. I have only about $120 in CUC. And this place includes rooms with 2 beds, TV, giant pool, 3 meals a day, all you can eat with waiters opening the doors for you, and a full bar with all you can drink. What would this cost in Canada, where a beer in the Toronto airport costs $11 plus tip? Cost of a room here = $33 per day booked in advance, $40 a day for walk ins like me. Gotta luv Cuba.

Not only that, but I suddenly remember from the TV this morning that there is a Cubs game on TV tonite! As I am checking in someone grabs my shoulder. It is none other than my fellow brigadista Roberto, the Uruguayan pirate! He is staying on here for a few days before heading back to Ontario. We meet for dinner, a massive all-you-can eat smorgasboard, and then I settle down to watch the Cubs battle their arch-rival Cardinals, at Wrigley Field.

The Cubs are struggling this year, but now that I am watching I can send cosmic brain waves that help them stomp the league leaders. Unfortunately, after a blasting thunderstorm delays the game  (eerily reminiscent of the game I attended last summer - see my 2010 blog for details) I realize that my room is directly behind the pool/dancefloor, where the live jive begins at 9 PM.

I am not opposed to loud music. In fact, I was sometimes a problem when I worked for City of Ashland because the rock & roll leaking out of my earphones was was annoying to my fellow workers. But this awful drunken Cuban disco jive drives to the verge of insanity. This is not music, it is brain damage for deranged plastered zombie tourists. The horror, the horror. I would love the bust a 2x4 over the head of one of these drummers. In general I am opposed to human torture. But I am willing to make an exception in the case of these musical terrorists. Send in the US marines, round them all up, ship them to Guantanamo, pull out their fingernails, poke out their eyes with red hot irons, pour battery acid over their genitals, whatever it takes to make them SHUT THE F UP.

For an hour I have the volume on the TV turned up to level 40, fingers plugged into my ears, but eventually I have to bail. I flee the hotel. Must walk 5 blocks down the street to escape the noise. After another hour of sitting on a bench watching the ancient cars roll past , the music finally ends. I head back to my room to watch the final inning of the Cubs win.

May 12

I call Air Canada in Havana at 8 AM, but there is no answer. They guy did not want to spend an extra 5 minutes lining up my flight on the 16^th yesterday afternoon. "Call me back first thing in the morning." Right. Fat chance. That seat will be long gone by 9 AM. Either I stay another 10 days in this tourist wasteland and wait until my pre-booked flight leaves, or its gonna cost me $1,000 to get off this island.

At 9:01 I call Havana. Is the ticket for the 16^th still available? Yes, but it will cost $400, and I will still need to buy a ticket from Toronto to Victoria. I whine and snivel, and the guy comes up with another option: I can fly from Cuba to Calgary on the 14^th, and then on to Victoria. And it will only cost me another $175. Yes Yes Yes!

I head back to the cafeteria.

Last call for brehakfast, so I have one last coffee, and take pics of a guest who does not wear a blue arm bracelet. In fact does not even have arms.

English sparrow cleaning up scraps

In most places in Cuba, the birds can fly in and out of the buildings if they wish. The waiter, probably concerned that I am taking pics that will be used to discredit the hygiene of the hotel, asked me to show proof that I have rented a room when he sees me take this pic. Will I be reported to the CDR for this?

Another perfect morn, like every other here in paradise. I decide to hop in the pool for a swim, then read more of my Che bio in a lawn chair. But just as I get to the pool they crank up the blaring megadeath speakers blasting trash pop music across the universe. Bummer.

Essential item #1 for every tourist to bring with them if they got to Cuba: Toilet paper.

Essential item #2: Earplugs

Cuba is a poor nation. Probably huge amounts of oil trapped in the rock beneath this island, but they cannot afford to buy or purchase modern wells to pump it out of the ground. So they are attempting to devise a new, more inexpensive means of developing an oil industry. They will blast trashy music so loud that it will split open the earth's crust, and then the oil will just bubble up to the surface. They just might make it happen.

After a quick lunch I walk over to nearby bank to change Canadian money into CUC, so I can pay rent for 2 more days. There is a strange plant growing in front of one of the hotels. Must be some exotic indigenous species.

I am beginning to learn a few of the ropes here, and changing currency is one of the most important issues a must learn how to master. This time in addition to the passport they need to know what hotel I stay at. Then it is time for a quick 2 block walk to the beach.

There are lots of fat lizards around Veradero. They curl up their tails, and they will hang around and eat scraps like chipmunks in N America.

The choices are so hard here – the pool or the beach, beach or the pool? I head 2 blocks to over to the Caribbean Sea.

This can't be the real color of the water.

They must spend enormous sums on dye to turn the entire ocean into this iridescent blue just for the tourists.

There are little palm thatch mushroom umbrellas all over the beach for the tourists to shade under. I wade in to the Caribbean over a mix of rock hard coral and soft white sand. Then swim out and float on my back. The only ocean I know is the N Pacific, which never gets warm.

Wish there was someone here that could take my picture. There is a Latin family a little ways down under another mushroom, but I know I cannot speak well enough to tell them how to run my little camera. So I sit in the shade reading my Che book. In a few minutes a smoking hot blond in a tiny little blue bikini sits down under the next shroom. Maybe 25, could be a fashion model. Her bikiini is the identical color as the water. Did she buy it to match? After I finish the chapter I get up enough nerve to ask if she speaks English. Yes, with and intruiging accent. She takes some pics for me, and I explain my journey with the Che brigade.

She is Swiss, from Lucerne, which is on a big lake. God I wish I was 30 years younger. I could get to know her and ask her to take me fishing there.

Here is case where Che's personality differs from mine. Che (until his 2nd marriage) was always chasing women, ugly or beautiful, he did not care. He was always broke, always reckless in spending his limited funds during his travels. “Money is an interesting luxury, nothing more.” He surely would have jumped at the chance to pursue this chance encounter with a gorgeous exotic young woman. I, on the other hand, am obsessed with the issue at hand, getting outahere, terrified by the prospect of being stranded in a country where I cannot speak the language, running out of money, missing my flight home. I hope she finds herself a younger, handsomer, wealthier revolutionary, if that is what she is seeking.

Back to the pool. Splash around, wash the salt off, try to read some more, but I am driven off by the jackhammer jackass beat of the disco jive. Living next to a steel foundry is quieter than being near this pool.

In afternoon and evening I relax in the room and write up text for my blog. On TV the Chicago Bulls win their basketball playoff game – hey this is the best team they have had since Michael Jordan. The live music starts during the 4^th quarter. I am to lazy to hike across town to get away from it, so I just wrap the 2 giant pillows tight around my and endure and hour and a half of bonking bongos. Wonder if the CIA ever thought of locking prisoners into cells in Guantanamo and blasting this music at them constantly. This could make the most radical terrorist give up and rat on his comrades in no time.

I drift off to sleep in vengeful dreams. After the IKN takes over I am going to appoint myself to the most important political position: International Commissioner of Music.I will see that these horrid musicians are rounded up and locked up forever in solitary confinement with continual Cuba jive and Michael Jackson pop shlock blasted onto them over boom box speakers.

May 13

Must go to Habana to get my plane ticket from Air Canada. I will take the bus,and stay overnite at a hotel near the airport. I get up late, have coffee with Roberto, go for a swim, check out of my hotel room, and head for the bus station. I ask for a taxi in front of the hotel cuz it is 4 blocks away, 98F and 99 percent humidity. There are usually taxis everywhere. Can't look sideways at a car or they will stop and ask if you need a taxi. But there are none here today. I start lugging my enormous load down the street. Taxis go by, but won't stop for me. A horse taxi is going by, but he won't take me. I finally make it to the station, pouring sweat. When I am 50 meters away 3 guys come running. “Taxi? Taxi?” No thanks guys.

I read more of my Che biography on the way to Habana. The information I got from the phone call said the Air Canada ticket office was in the Havana Libre hotel, which I am told is a big one downtown. The bus driver tells me where to get off, and I am alone in the big city, schlepping a huge load of stuff. I ask the driver where the hotel is and he points around the corner. I go around the corner. It is an old building with a huge set of stone stairs. 2 beautiful young women are walking down the stairs. I ask them if this is the Havana Libre, and they say no, it is a couple blocks away. They are Australian, they are going there too. They want to know if I need help carrying my baggage. “No thanks”, I say. I am a goddammed logger and I'll will not be seen with a couple of Aussie fashion models hucking my stuff around for me. We talk about the Che brigade on the way, and the Aussies I met in Caimito.

We get to the Havana Libre. There is no sign of an Air Canada booth in the huge hotel. One of the Aussies speaks Spanish, and asks a staffer at a tourist booth where the Air Canada office is. Around the corner and down the street. The Aussie girls are here to use the internet, and volunteer to look after my stuff while I go to look for Air Canada. But I decline and wander off on my own. I look all down the block, can't find it. Huck my stuff back to Havana Libre hoping to find the Aussies, but they are vanished. Now I am totally screwed. In the lobby of a huge ritzy hotel, packing a huge load of crap, no idea where I am going or how to get there. Nobody here understands me.The cold knife edge of panic slicing into my heart again. Then I remember that I have the Air Canada phone number in my wallet. Now I need to learn how to use a phone in this strange land. I finally get it together and reach Air Canada. They are about 6 blocks away, near the waterfront.

I pack my stuff down the street and find their office. The Air Canada guy is GREAT. Super helpful. I have a ticket back to Canada, leaving tomorrow at 8 PM. YES! Only one thing the ticket guy forgot to tell me on the phone yesterday: The plane leaves from Veradero. I need to go back there and get a hotel room for the nite. And I did not need to bring all my baggage to Habana, cuz now I will have to truck it all back to Veradero.

While the Air Canada guy is typing out my ticket another Cuban comes in with a Canadian Coast Guard model helicopter. It has no rotor blade. They point at the rotor hub and discuss. He tells me that remote control helicopters are his favorite hobby. But he has not learned to get them off the ground yet. Flying choppers is hard, and he keeps crashing it and breaking off the rotor blade. I tell him that I used to work with helicopters in the forest industry in BC.

(I do not mention that I once worked for Sammy Craig in Ucluelet BC on the first ever heli-logging show in Canada. Also the first time anyone ever paid me to cut down trees. Or that I once almost crashed a Hughes 500. He was hovering over a big stump in a clearcut on a steep mountainside on Vancouver Island. I was standing on the stump in 2 ft of snow, trying to crawl over the skid thru the open door into the cockpit. Reaching for a grip to pull myself in, I nearly grabbed the control stick, which would have surely crashed the chopper and maybe killed us both. Or the story I once heard about a Coast Guard helicopter similar to his model that was picking up a lighthouse keeper on Van Isle. They chopper landed on a log float that was attached by cables to the shore and to anchors offshore. The passenger got in and they were idling ready to take off when a big wave washed the float a little closer to shore. The rotor tip hit the rockface and shattered. A chunk of the blade came flying back, sliced thru the windshield and then sliced right thru the pilot's neck. His head fell off and rolled across the floor onto the passenger's feet, while the engine kept idling. The passenger was unharmed, physically, but later had to undergo psychological counseling to deal with the event.)

Now I need to get back to Veradero. I take a taxi to the bus station. On the way we pass a Chino cemetery right across from the huge Colon cemetery. I had no idea there were so many Chinese here for so many years. Then we arrive at the bus station and I unload my pile of shit. People are yelling “Taxi! Taxi!” Sorry buddy, I am taking the bus.

.
“Where you going?”

"Veradero."

 “20 pesos! 20 pesos!”

To Veradero? Do the math: Wait here for 4 hours sweating in the hot sun and get into Veradero at 10 PM, or pay an extra 10 bucks and get into VD in time for free dinner, free drinks, and a swim in the crystal blue Caribbean Sea? Duh. Is this guy for real, or is it a scam? How can anybody make a profit giving rides to VD for 20 bucks?

But I have my ticket in hand now. On easy street, on the glide path to Canada. Why not take a chance? It took about 3 ½ hours for the bus to get to Habana. “How long will it take to get to VD?” He looks at me with a wicked grin. “2 hours.” Does this car have solid rocket fuel boosters?

I load my bags into trunk, and sit in the front seat of a new car. Suddenly it becomes clear. 2 Cuban chicas and an hombre hop into the back. They needed an extra passenger to make it worthwhile. We are off thru the industrial section of Habana. I had no idea there was so much industry here.

The driver is insane. Tailgaiting, weaving in and out of lanes.

Dichotomy:

US drivers are always angry. Partly because they live in a rich country where the roads are always crowded. Road rage. The horn in the US is an instrument of anger, vengeance. “Get out of my way I am in a hurry!”

In Cuba the roads are much less crowded. The horn is an instrument of courtesy. Every time you pass someone (which is quite often when the roads are full of bicycles, pedestrians, horses, and slow moving

1942 Buicks) you give a slight beep to let them know you are coming.

Except for this taxi driver. This guy uses his horn as a weapon. Never seen anybody change lanes so often or so fast, with only inches of clearance. Bicyclists give him the finger as he flashes by their handlebars. He terrifies people who are stopped ahead of him at a traffic lite by racing up at full speed and jolting to a stop inches off their rear bumper.

We pass another DeSoto. Never see these any more in the US or Canada. But there are lots here.

Getting out of town onto the freeway now. Diving into the right lane and slicing between loaded semi trucks on the left and horse drawn carts on the right. The guy in the back seat, who should be in heaven by himself with 2 chicas, has fallen asleep. Or maybe passed out. Or maybe died. From fear.He is leaning forward with his head against the driver seat. The chicas are giggling at my feeble jokes, and passing us crackers and oreo-like cookies from the back seat. I am going to die. We are all going to die. And soon. In a horrible pile of smashed glass and twisted metal. So why not enjoy your last minutes on the planet?

Speed limit is 100K here, but we are exceeding the speed of lite. Except he mysteriously slows down in certain places. Knows where the cops are. He seems to know half the people on the freeway. The car is air conditioned, but he keeps pulling up beside people – right or left – rolling down the window, and carrying on a raucous conversation with them at 100K. Once he is talking to someone on his cell phone, then races up beside them, rolls down his window, and then points at them and “shoots” them with the phone.

Halfway there he pulls over at a cantina for a shot of expresso. Just what this guy needs. He is WAY too laid back. A quick shot of vitamin C will perk him up. There is a classic old Chevy parked in the lot here.

We pass a huge factory.

“Que es? Sucre?” I ask. (Is it a sugar factory?)

“No, ron”, he says.

Is say “Viva la ron! Viva la revolution!” and everybody laughs.

Approaching Matanzas now, we come upon an oncoming car flashing its headlites as we approach a curve. In Canada this is a warning that there are cops ahead. Maybe a speed trap. I look at the driver.

“Policia?”

He looks back, slows down and shrugs. Maybe? We round the curve. Sure enough, there is a cop car on the shoulder, and a cop standing in the road. But our driver has already slowed down. The cop waves his hand but we drive on thru. He is flagging down the next car, poor sucker that was not clued in to the warning. When we are safely past the speed trap, driver reaches under the seat with his left hand and pulls out a huge knife with a wicked 10 inch blade. Maniac gleam in his eye.

He says “something something policia”.

I can't understand his Spanish, but I can easily translate it: This is the way we deal with cops around here.

We get to VD in 2 hours flat. He lets off the 2 chicas, and then the guy, who has not died after all, then a takes me to my hotel. All for 20 pesos. You could not buy this much excitement at a thrill park for twice the price, plus I am back in time for dinner, and then a swim in the pool.

They are playing that awful mi\usic again. But I will have my revenge. I have located the command center nest tothe pool from where they control and broadcast the horrible music. The opening act of the IKN revolution will be when the International Commissioner of Music orders a tiny cruise missile to strike this music command center. Without their blasting jive the Cubans will be helpless, and the IKN will triumph.

In spite of their fearless leader Fidel, almost nobody wears a beard here, and NO MALES HAVE LONG HAIR. Fidel was the son of a hi-class family where appearance was important. He wore Bryl Creem in his cropped, manicured hair. I have not had a haircut in a while. My hair blows around in the wind, and Idon'tgiveashit. The people in the pool seem to like me, and the Swiss tourists on the beach seem intrigued, but the bartenders and bartendresses hate me. If there are 11 people lined up at the bar with me in the middle they will serve the other 10, and then change out the beer keg before serving me.

But I could care less.. I am floating now. No longer in fear of being stranded here. Life is great, especially by the pool, especially if you are drinking multiple Cuba libres. It is very hot, and it takes me only seconds to gulp the first one. After the 2^nd I look at the distance across the pool diagonally. I can do a backstroke, but I am a terrible swimmer. No way I can do a crawl that far. But after 3 Cuba libres I can dive in and burn across the pool and back, then hop and go to the bar for another. This time I wil try something more exotic. The green one, whatever it is.

There is a family of Cubans drinking in the pool and goading their little girl to jump in.

Viva Cuba!

At dinner with Roberto I go up to get some meat. There is a special chef who does nothing but fry meat on a big griddle and hand it out to customers. He hates me. Is it cuz my hair is not combed? There is a long line and I am last. When it gets to the end there are 2 pieces of meat left and he gives them both to the guy ahead of me. Sorry, you will have to wait until I fry up another batch. F you buddy, I will have soup instead. There are forks & knives on every table, but no spoons. Don't care, I will pour the bowl into my mouth. I am talking to Roberto, mashing the potatoes in the soup, when a voice says “I have never seen anyone eat soup with a fork before.” I look up to see a beautiful woman with dark skin and a tight T shirt. She goes to get me a spoon. Turns out she is Cuban born, unemployed like me, quit her job last year like me cuz it was not rewarding. Unlike me she has a short crewcut. She was doing pharmaceutical research in LA, Cal, but quit cuz she didn't like drugs. I tell her that I am 62, had a medical exam when I was 19. Doc told me I was fine, and tried to send me to Vietnam. I went to Canada instead, and have never had another medical exam. Never had a shot or done any medical drugs. Still kickin.

May 14

At breakfast there is a police car and motorcycle who have stopped a car outside the hotel. Other than the time we passed a tourist who had hit a cyclist on the road, this is the only time during my stay in Cuba when I saw caps actually stop a car.In the US or Canada it is impossible to drive anywhere for more than a couple hours without seeing flashing lites and people pulled over for speeding. But that does not seem to happen in Cuba.

I lounge around the pool, having a drink and enjoying the scenery.

Then it is a qick walk to the beach with Roberto, who is flying back to Toronto today. One last swim in this luxurious ocean.

I try to catch a wave body surfing, but the waves are not big enough.Or could it be that I am a bit fatter now than I was in 1971, on the W coast of Van Isle, the last time I went body surfing.

I am actually inside this wave,but you can't see me.

Roberto has met someone at the hotel who will drive us to the airport. Bueno! I go along with him and see him off at noon. My plane does not leave until 7 PM, but I don't mind being early today. Gives me more time to read my Che biography. Finally, I see the Air Canada jet land, and pull in to the lading gate. Oh Canada! Love to see that maple leaf on the tail. I am going home.

 

Just at sunset we left off. Farewell to this magical island. I will return. With another kayak. On a mission from the IKN.

As the sun sets over the Caribbean I head N to Calgary, where they speak a language I can understand.