Santiago de Cuba / Miami (March 20)

This was our last day in Cuba.  We left the hotel at 9:45 on route the center of Santiago de Cuba.  On the way we passed an impressive Cuban cubist fountain in Parque Histórico Abel Santamaría. For a moment, probably due to insufficient coffee at breakfast, I thought it might be The Great & Powerful Oz or the Borg Collective from Star Trek.

After getting off the bus at Parque Céspedes, the guides pointed out various things to see and places to visit, then turned us loose.  

The plaza being infested with panhandlers, mimes and musicians, we bolted for Hotel Casa Grande.  Taking the elevator to the roof, we looked down on the square and around at the city.

The restoration work we had seen from the roof of the hotel was also underway inside Catedral de Nuestra Señora de la Asunción.  Nevertheless, it was an impressive church.

 

Leaving the cathedral, we walked across the square to a busy shopping street.  It was fun to explore it for a few blocks before time dictated returning to the rendezvous point for the group.

To see and hear what it was like on this street, click on the picture below.  This will take you to a YouTube where you can see a video I recorded.  Remember to use the back arrow in the upper right-hand corner of your browser to return to this post.

On the way from the rendezvous point to our bus, I finally got a clear picture of one of the large trucks that often served as buses throughout Cuba.  There were four front-to-back rows of bench seats between which those not seated stood.  It made a Boston subway car at rush hour seem spacious.  These trucks are privately owned.

We had to walk several blocks to get to our bus.  This entailed walking uphill on a narrow sidewalk.  The temperature was 90 and there was not a breath of air other than that created by exhaust-spewing vehicles passing by us.    

Gratefully aboard our air conditioned bus, we departed Santiago de Cuba for Mella, named after Julio Antonio Mella.  In the shadow of the sugarcane refinery dedicated to him, we disembarked to see a display of naïve art - art done by artists with no formal training. The art colony was begun in the late 19th century by a Swedish-American from Boston.

Maria Poppins?

We crossed the street to have our final meal together accompanied by some thankfully brief farewell remarks and a group picture.

(l-to-r) Marlon, Hilary and Osmel

Since I am in it, I did not take it.  I do not know
who did and therefore cannot offer attribution.

We boarded the bus one last time for the trip to Holguin.

There had been a question about why we had to drive several hours to Holguin's airport rather than fly out of Santiago de Cuba.  The answer was that there was no daily service to Miami from either airport, so the day dictated the airport.

The experience of checking in at the airport waffled between terrible and awful.  We first queued up to check our bags (which took over an hour) then queued up to pay the exit tax, followed by queuing up for immigration and finally one more time for security.  At one point our guide Hilary noted that standing in slow-moving lines was a every day occurrence for Cubans, so their perception of the process at the airport was much different than ours.

Inside the departure area, and confronted with a one hour delay, we found something to eat, prowled the shops and waited to board the plane.

Once again we were on an American Airlines flight.  The flight was uneventful.  When the flight touched down in Miami was I imagining it or did I feel a surge of information course through my cellphone as voice, data, bluetooth, GPS, e-mail, text and all the other features of living in a connected world came back to life.  

While many in our group remarked on numerous occasions during the trip that they did not miss being connected, I was not in that camp.  One of the services that I missed the most was Google as there was some real time "fact" checking that I would have liked to do.

We persevered through the organized chaos of getting through immigration and customs at Miami Airport.  As our group scattered we had a chance to wish others well, but missed a few we would have enjoyed bidding adios.

We got to the Sofitel and although tired, after waffling a bit decided to get something to eat.  When the food arrived we devoured it, obviously hungrier that we realized.  Around midnight we returned to our room and shortly thereafter drifted off to sleep.  For the first time in two weeks there was no need to set an alarm clock since we did not need to be on our way until the afternoon.