Last February, Cutest whispers in her cutest voice, “Cute, I would really like to visit Cuba. It would be a lovely adventure.” Remember the words lovely and adventure. So not wanting to disappoint Cutest, we made arrangements via an “educational tour,” today’s back door entry into the U.S. embargoed island.
Happily we made plans to visit the little, only 750 miles long, socialist Caribbean island during the last half of October.
Mistake #1. Although the official hurricane season begins in June, it doesn’t end until the last of November. And with climate change keeping the waters in the Caribbean warmer longer, let’s just say that it remains dicey even further into the year.
Sure enough, Oscar (don’t you love how hurricanes have such sweet names today?) was predicted to strike Cuba the day before our arrival. And it did. Fortunately, for us anyway, the major impact was felt on the far east end. However, several days before Oscar the Grouch struck, electrical power on the ENTIRE island shut down. The hurricane was not the culprit, but the lack of fuel oil was.
Cutest and I, forced into playing it safe, had flown into Miami one day prior to our 8 a.m. departure for Havana. That night we debated. And debated. With a hurricane striking Cuba, with no power in Havana, and with trash stacking up in the streets, did we really think this was our best idea for a tropical adventure? Cutest’s son and my daughter tried to persuade us to scuttle our plans. We read all the news reports relentlessly. We called the tour company every three hours. No problemo they said. We doubted their veracity.
But being long in age and short on sense, we kept inching forward. Next morning, well before dawn, yawn, we sat at the airport still discussing go or not to go. Aiding our decision making was the fact that we could not find two seats on any airline that could return us home that day. And by the way, the one seat we found was over one thousand American dollars.
After much hair pulling, gnashing of teeth and flipping of coins, we chose to go. If things were as terrible as we were reading, we’d stay a night and come home Tuesday when there were plentiful flights. But, call us crazy, stupid, or ready to be put in the home, off we went, after missing our designated flight.
You might say that was error #2, but keep reading. After a brief hour and fifteen minute flight, we touched down on Cuban soil. Would there be electricity to cook food, power elevators, print tickets, recharge phones??? These and more questions will be answered by Cutest.
Now, quoting Paul Harvey, for the rest of the story, look for Cutest’s forthcoming blog with many pictures. She promises she'll be on time.
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