December 31, 2008
New Year's Eve in Cuba: We and our bikes get to Cuba problem-free
It was nice to have a good hotel and nice place and bed to sleep in. I have to say, though, that I hardly slept because I was so excited for the trip.
I think I was up by 6:30 am because when Marie-Anne's alarm sounded I was already awake. We quickly got ready, then I dragged our extremely heavy bike boxes and bags to the elevator. The airport buses were every thirty minutes and sure enough, shortly after 9:00 am along came a fairly sizeable bus - we were the only ones on it, so having the bikes in the aisle was not an issue.
As I usually am on a bike trip, I was nervous about getting the bikes to Cuba without an issue and also thought I would be charged a fortune with our overweight bags because of all of the medicine which we were going to donate. When I asked the Air Transat official where to bring them he said, ' Oh no, not more bikes!' Great!
We went to the counter where they weighed everything, gave us our seats (aisle-window combo) and had us bring the bikes over to the special services counter and x-ray, and then they were gone, hopefully to be seen in Cuba. There was no extra weight charged and no problems with any of the staff other than the one comment. The airport time went quickly though we took off thirty minutes late, but then our flight took only three hours (half an hour shorter than scheduled) so we were at the Varadero airport by 5:00 pm.
My next worry was whether or not the bikes would arrive and if they did, if we would have any problems going through Cuban customs. We weren't sure if there would be a problem with the value of the medicine we were bringing, or if there would be a delay bringing in bikes, and have to declare them to customs to make sure they were not being left in the country. As I had gotten the information on Lonely Planet's forums, I asked one of the airport attendants if he could find our bikes for us - he went looking for them straight away, then when they came on the belt he carried them over to our cart - all of which earned him a tip. The boxes were in decent shape though one of them had a hole at the top through which small items may have slipped out (cyclists - be sure to secure everything within the box in a strong bag and attach it to the bike, just in case the box gets torn open - this way you won't arrive with no seat or no pedals); one of them was broken at the handle and had my sandal bag sticking out. I may have lost something but at least not a crucial part like a wheel or pedal.
With our gear on the carts we headed to the customs check with our breaths held. The officers spoke amongst themselves (possibly deciding whether or not to stop us) but the one at the gate gave a wave and a look that seemed to mean, 'Go ahead through, we're not bothering.' Amazing.
The Nolitours representative was right there and guided us to our Gaviota bus - which had a luggage compartment underneath that was packed from front to back and top to bottom. There was no room for our bikes. The driver calmly said, 'One moment, please.' He squeezed our large suitcases into the hold, but otherwise we just stood outside the bus with the bikes and waited.
A few minutes later the driver came over and told us that we could put the bikes inside the bus alongside the seats. I put them at the back and we were away. The ride to the resort was uneventful, though like the past two years, very interesting to see the old buildings in Matanzas, many of which had their little Christmas trees.
Kiki the bellboy (actually a man, from Jaruco) brought our gear to the room with his cart (what a lifesaver), and as soon as our stuff was in the room, I zipped over to the beach bar to say hello to Adrian who certainly remembered us. We changed and went for the New Year's Eve dinner in Los Girasoles buffet restaurant. In line to get in, we saw and chatted with Mini Mike, Maylene, Ailec, and Erling, all of whom remembered us. It felt so welcoming and homey to be back. As always, the food was really good and we ate lots. When we were done we went right to the concrete patio to get a front row seat for the New Year's Eve show. We chatted with the staff we know while we waited. We met a couple from Peterborough and another from Toronto. It was a lot of fun, but I have to admit that after such anticipation for the evening, we were both rather disappointed that it could not compare with last year's show.
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