Will we get there this time?!

I woke up early full of excitement. After all – I was going on holiday later! – all I had to do was finish work and get the train at 4:30 …Simples! 😁

Surely nothing could go wrong today, I mean lightning doesn’t strike the same place twice, right?

…WRONG! 

I casually checked my phone and was alarmed to see several missed messages from Fi…

…OUR TRAIN HAD BEEN CANCELLED! 😨

Typical! – how come travelling with Fi never runs smoothly?

Luckily for us we had a secret weapon that we could call on, in the form of my sister Pooh (aka Julie), Railway Worker Extraordinaire. After some investigations she soon had us re-booked on an earlier train. Go Pooh!

It meant getting another half-day off work, but hey, what was another half-day in the big scheme of things!

After being taxied to the station by our other halves and a flurry of goodbye hugs, we were on our way, feeling happy!

The train journey was uneventful, the same couldn’t be said for our trek to the hotel from the train station!

We were staying in a “nearby” hotel overnight, so we decided to walk to the hotel – big mistake!

You may recall that directions are not our strong point, however, getting lost is!

The hotel was at most a 10-minute walk away, it took us an hour!! 😟

At first, we headed off in the wrong direction, and by the time we realised our mistake we had walked for 15 minutes and had to backtrack to the train station!

Then we headed in the right direction …but on the wrong path! …and had to cross a busy three-lane roadway (think busy motorway!)

And then to add insult to injury (or our case, stupidity!) – as we arrived tired dragging our luggage, we saw a bus leaving, the HOTEL SHUTTLE BUS …Doh!😳

By this time, we were in dire need of an extra-large gin and with all that walking had worked up quite the appetite! But gin came first!

The next day we decided against walking to the airport and got the shuttle bus – Well, with our track record who knew where we’d end up …or when!

Arriving at ‘Departures’, we found a massive queue – oh, the joys of travelling. But the queue moved quickly, and everyone was in a happy holiday mood. 😊

At this point I’d like to remind you of last year’s passport incident, involving a certain Fiona Higgins!

For the full details, you’ll need to check out series one of my Ladies on Tour blog (I know all you dedicated fans have already shed a few tears with us on that journey …albeit tears of laughter!)

So you’ll understand why, when we were called forward to hand over our documents for checking, we were extremely nervous!

We’d double-checked all documents (and there were quite a few – Passports, Visas and Cuba medical forms), and were sure they were ok. But faced with a stern-looking official we were now praying everything was ok.

It seemed to take a lifetime for the documents to be examined (I was starting to think the officials had been forewarned about Fi 😁).  I don’t think they even noticed the two of us turning blue as we collectively held our breath waiting on their final decision 🙏

Then, without any fanfare or even an ‘enjoy your holiday’ we were waived through! What a relief 🥹

We quickly rushed off before they could change their minds!

Before too long, we were flying high with thankfully nothing eventful happening. Just two friends enjoying a few free G’n’Ts.

Arriving in Cuba was at first well …uninteresting …like most airports it was pretty dull!

Passport control took ages and we had to go through security coming out of the airport (even in Cuba Fi’s passport still seemed to be in working order!🤣)

Naturally, we still managed a moment of stupidity in the airport. Let’s face it, it wouldn’t be a Ladies on Tour without frequent – errmmmm daily – acts of stupidity!

We were waiting for ages for our bags to come off the baggage carousel…

Only to discover, some 20 minutes later, that a helpful individual had already taken off all the bags and they were ready and waiting for us! – Doh!

As we walked outside the airport building, we were ushered to a waiting taxi by our Tui rep, ready to be driven to Havana.

It was about an hour in the taxi, in complete silence. TBH if it wasn’t for the rep explaining about the journey beforehand, we may have thought we’d been kidnapped by someone and driven off to God knows where!

(Visions of the Day of the Ned came flooding back! …perhaps a tad dramatic of me, after all it was silent and much safer driving!)

During the drive we got the briefest glimpses of Cuba, from the ocean on one side and the dense forests on the other, but essentially, we had no idea where we were or what we were looking at. We learnt more of this later and of course, I’ll share this with you in a future blog post😉 

As the Taxi entered Havana and came out into the old town, we found ourselves surrounded by beautiful brightly painted old buildings. We had finally arrived in a city full of music and colour 😊

We got out of the Taxi, Fi stepping out gracefully …and me, well not so gracefully! …as I had failed to unplug the seatbelt which meant I kinda fell out of the taxi instead! – Typical! 🫢

Fi forever graceful and me clumsy!

…but both of us ready to start our great Cuban adventure!