I cleared Mexican customs about 9 AM but my flight to Cuba didn’t leave until midnight. Those nine hours passed like so many minutes. The rest of the group gradually showed up around the Aero Cubana section of the airport, and we greeted and got to know each other. Some of them were sort of self-consciously wondering if those Mexican guys over there, or any of the strangers hanging around, were observing our growing group waiting to line up at the Aero Cubana counter. But my priority status of place and obviously happy self-confidence reassured them. Finally, the plane started loading, with all of us, and with a very varied lot of other passengers. And our little four-engine propjet took off into the darkness.
The flight over the unseen ocean blackness was exhilarating and mysterious, and time itself seemed suspended, as they say. I simply do not remember any conversations I had with my fellow passengers, although I remember talking as well as looking and spacing out in wonderment. I remember seeing clouds below, but no lights were visible until we broke through over Havana itself. God, it was beautiful. And just as suddenly, someone gave a cheer and everyone in the plane seemed to be chattering and laughing while looking around and fastening their seat-belts. And the joy didn’t dissipate; in fact, everyone was getting MORE ramped up, as the airport runways emerged below. The plane set down bumpily, taxied for a short time, and stopped in front of the main building.
My epiphany occurred upon reading the words, still scrawled on the airport’s main building: “Patria es Humanidad”.
The tour group’s itinerary was to spend a day in Havana; then to fly to Santiago de Cuba at the eastern end of the island and spend a couple of days in Santiago and its environs (including the Rio de Plata); then to drive back to Havana by bus, over two or three days, and spend several days in Havana before flying back to Cancun.
Well, that first night, I was so nervous in the hotel in Havana with my $50,000 that I couldn’t sleep. So I hid the money in my room and went out walking around 4 AM -- to view the incredible Spanish colonial architecture and the occasional Cuban couple and the monument of the invasion party’s boat, The Granma, located several blocks from our hotel.
Four or fives hours later, while the rest of the tour group bussed to and visited the Museum of the Revolution, I took a taxi to the Cuban Institute that worked with my travel group, and delivered the cash to a very busy, and surprised, and grateful Cuban lady there. Then I re-joined the group for lunch. We saw sights in Havana the rest of the day. No one asked why I’d missed the morning bus, and I saw no call to tell anyone about what I’d done. The next day we flew to Santiago.
My pre-dawn sightseeing had worked out so perfectly in Havana that I got up and went out before dawn in Santiago. Santiago was a small town compared to Havana, and our hotel overlooked the main square, dominated by a great church to the hotel’s left. I walked down one of the small streets exiting the square. There were no Spanish colonial buildings and instead of deserted, the streets contained occasional workers going to work early, or leaving a bar late, but mainly it was very quiet. No one seemed to notice me; I carried nothing in my hands; and I had only a few pesos in my pocket. July in Cuba is warm, and I was in shirtsleeves.
Suddenly, a small figure accosted me with his hand out for money. I gave him some, and we talked, in broken Spanish and broken English. I can’t remember two words we said, but I discovered he’d been a featherweight in the 1950’s, and he’d persuaded two American promoters to take him to the states and fight. He said he only fought six times, in Florida, and returned to Cuba very disappointed. The American promoters were just crooks and con men. I sympathized, and then invited him to come to the hotel veranda that afternoon at 5PM sharp, and to drink a mojito with me. We parted most amicably.
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