I’m sititng in a park right now somewhere in Havana. Zag and Kim the kiwi girl from our hostel are sitting across from me on park benches with both their back packs and Tomas’ bags as well. The three of us have no idea where we are and no idea where Tomas’ is, he disappeared with our ‘taxi’ driver about 45 minutes ago to ‘get the car’ while we waited with the bags. A Cuban man stands before me attempting to practise his english which is difficult for both of us and can only go so far due to my complete lack of Spanish. Before continuing his walk through the park he asks me if I had any english reading material he could have but I’m completely distracted by our scenario to remember I have a copy of GQ (with Pharell on the cover) in my bag and he leaves empty handed. Its such a shame as he is dressed quite well for his old age and the image of him strolling around the streets with it in his hands is quite an amusing one.
A man walks through the street with a vegetable cart and we’re in the process of buying a few tomatoes when the car pulls up and Tomas, the man who we are about to discover has stuffed us around and our actual taxi driver get out and begin loading our bags into a taxi. Its been about 2 hours since we left the hostel that morning and we still hadn’t left Havana yet. It was worse for Tomas, he had followed this guy on foot, bus and taxi to get to where the actual taxi drivers were. Yes, they took a taxi to go find a taxi. What a waste of time. I shudder to think how this process would’ve gone today without Tomas’. He’s from Hungary but speaks 4 languages fluently, including the same Spanish that they speak here in Cuba. He learnt in the Canary Islands off Spain which is lucky because I’ve spoken to several central/south americans who say that even they have trouble communicating with the locals!
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The drive to the coast took about 3 hours. Magnolia, the host at the hostel, had organised for us to stay at Matanzas which is a town about 30mins away from the beach. We went for a walk around the town but there was sweet-FA to do in the town so we did what you do in Cuba when you have nothing to do; buy rum & talk shit.
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This makes me smile.. “Buy rum and talk shit” 🙂