From behind the Coconut Curtain

“So this is Cuba. I’ve been here a matter of hours, although I can’t be totally certain about this as I don’t own a watch, but what I can tell is that Cuba won’t be a walk in the park by any means. I arrived at an overpriced, fully booked hotel in the centre of Havana to be told that every hotel in the city was booked up for the night. Although Cuban law states that you cannot enter the country without booking your first three nights in a hotel, I wasn’t too keen to have it stuck at me by the man and just made it up at the customs desk. I was obviously relatively convincing as the guy either believed me or didn’t care. After leaving Emily at the airport with a frog in my throat I arrived feeling delicate and a little incomplete, which was an apt start for things to come. A friendly guy working at the hotel, upon hearing that I need a bed for the night, said that he knew someone who could help me out. He called a guy who sold cigars to tourists, hanging around outside, and told him to walk me to a place around a block away, and I, happy to have a bed, followed. The apartment was owned by a couple with a young daughter and I began to feel at ease straight away. The price was much cheaper than everywhere else and the room has a fan, fridge and a bathroom. After filling in all of the necessary forms that are required to officiate a bed for the night in a communist country, which is a lot, the cigar seller offered to walk me back to the hotel. I accepted and politely listened to him tell me what a wonderful price he could do me on cigars, before going into the hotel. This is where things began to turn sour.

Internet is slow and mostly unavailable in Cuba, and you can only expect to find it in the pricey hotels, which charge at least $6 an hour to experience the rush of their mind bogglingly slow internet speed. The problem here is that modern web pages are much more complex than they used to be and require quick speeds to load. I sat staring at a blank screen loading for 30 minutes before giving up for the night. I could return to my room, read my book and try again tomorrow. However, I was soon to find out that this was not to be when I returned to the flat to find that my key didn’t work in the lock and nobody was answering the door. So here I sit in a strange city, in the corridor of a random apartment block waiting for people I don’t know to return from wherever they may be. The Internet is totally useless meaning that I have no contact with anyone I know. I feel utterly defeated and lonely, missing my girlfriend, and this is only few hours into my time ‘behind the coconut curtain’... ”