The long way to Havana. Cuban chronicles. Day 0.

I started the trip with minus one phone charger. I left it in the boarding area, because my precious smartphone had an almost dead battery all the time.

During the flight from Montevideo to Panama City, I had fun recongnizing the rainforest and different rivers. I also got sad while looking down and seeing all the clear areas there were. It's a shame.

This is how this area -and many others- of the rainforest look from above. Shame on us.

Note 1: while we are stopping in Panama City and looking tech items which are supposedly cheap but really aren't, I found out that Panama's currency is called Balboa, and I cannot understand why peope don't call it just Rocky. Like...how much for the coffee? 3 Rockys, it would be awesome, no one listens to me.

Note 2: is this stupid thing of applauding the plane while landing purely Uruguayan or not?

Note 3: while we were waiting to board in Panama, a crazy looking guy appeared. He sat next to us and offered us food. I don't trust him, sorry. It seems he was Lebanese, or that's what my dad understood somehow. I wanted to talk about it with him and told him I came from a Lebanese family as well. He didn't understand. He left and it was the awkard moment of the day.

Note 4: we are underdeveloped and there's no question. People huddled to get on the plane and the boarding line gets stuck. They also carry too many things in their carry on luggage.

Finally, we landed on Havana around midnight and my head couldn't stop playing a Manu Chao's song that says "12 de la noche en La Habana, Cuba". Our luggage appeared an hour and a half later. On the ¿good side? , no luggage was coming out, so it probably was just a delay -it was indeed-. Meanwhile, these gigantic and peculiar packages appeared, if I had to describe them I'd say they were like giant eggs made of those old plastic bags to do the shopping wrapped in plastic film.

When the luggage episode was finally over, we went out the airport. While we waited to exchange money, a man approached dad to offer him a taxi ride. My dad's couple and myself, did not approve entirely, but my dad accepted. As I went over this with one of my friends after getting back, we, as Uruguayan people, can't help but to distrust everyone and everything thinking that somehow we will end up screwed. And that's basically because sadly it has become too regular on this side of the World.

We finaly took Johnny's cab, but checking the gps on my dad's girlfriend's gps. Everything was going smoothly until the guy left the avenue we were going by, and got into a dark street. I sincerely thought it was the end of our trip, so soon. Again, my apologies, I'm an Uruguayan.

It was a long way to get to the core of Old Havana, we had to get through it all and it's a pretty big area. I don't know if it was the steets on repair, the loneliness due to the hour -it was already around 3 am by then- , or the orange street lights, but I kept thinking what was I going to do in that sad place during the next four days. I was soooo wrong, 4 days weren't enough, not even to start with this town.

It was really late at night and my face was not the best when we got to Ariel's apartment, our homestay. He was so welcoming! We accomodated ourselves and prepared to sleep, and in the morning he'll be back to prepare breakfast for us and tell us about stuff we can do around town.

Last note for today: while I'm in my bedroom writing about today's adventures, I realize there is not one, but four porcelain clowns staring at me. Since it's been 24 hours without sleeping, tonight won't be a problem. The next nights I'll have to sleep with a little help from my friend, Rum.

So, today's summary: Havana and myself definetely didn't fall in love at first sight. Tomorrow, we'll see.

*You can read the original version of this post here.